On my first day as an employee of Williams F1, way back in 2002, one of my new colleagues said “I hope you’re an optimist”. Quite a strange welcome I thought and one that I didn’t really understand at the time, but his remark was a reflection of the culture at Williams, one that is always looking forward, always looking to improve on the present and find that extra performance that makes the difference and creates a winning package.

This is a culture that finds it easy to let go of yesterday’s ideas and embrace the fact that what was good or even excellent then is no good now and what matters is what happens at the next race and during the next season. This is so important at this time of year; we have finished all of the races in the 2009 season and will not enter competition again until the Bahrain GP in March 2010. This means that our development of the 2010 car has to be done without the spur of immediate competition and we will not get a real benchmark of our performance relative to our competitors until that all important first race of the season.

So what is keeping us busy? What many people don’t realise is that we design and produce a complete car every year, so that virtually nothing transfers from the car that finishes the last race of a season to the car that starts winter testing in February. This is all the more the case for 2010, because there are significant rule changes that are forcing us to redesign. Most importantly, in 2010 we will not be allowed to refuel the cars during races. This means that we need to carry all of the race fuel at the start of the race and so we will need to have a much larger fuel tank on the car. In addition, the minimum weight of the cars is being increased from 605kg to 620kg. This and the extra fuel will mean that the cars will be 80 to 100kg heavier at the start of the race than they have been in the recent past. As a result we have to produce new designs for the brakes, the suspension and many other parts. It also increases the amount of energy that we have to absorb in the event of an accident and so changes the design of the impact structures.

The changes brought about by regulation change are not the only things that will be different for us in 2010; for our engine we are returning to Cosworth, with whom we have won 17 races and 4 World Championships in past years. We also have a brand new driver line-up. Our former test driver, Nico Hulkenburg, won the GP2 Championship in convincing style last year and has earned his promotion to a race drive. He is a promising young talent, full of enthusiasm and curiosity. To partner him, we are delighted to have Rubens Barrichello, who is the most experienced driver in Formula 1, having started in 284 Grands Prix and won 11 of them. We think that this combination of youth and experience will give us a strong pairing in 2010.

Our competitors will also be different; BMW and Toyota have both announced that they will not be competing next year; we say “welcome” to Campos, Manor and USF1 and “welcome back” to Lotus and Sauber. So it is all change for us once again. We all come to work each day knowing that we need to work harder than everyone else to find the optimum response to the new rules and certain in the knowledge that next year will be better than last. Always the optimists!

Alex Burns 08 December 2009