Williams downplay power unit concerns

Williams have downplayed concerns that being an engine customer and not a works team could hurt their chances this season.

This year with the new engine regulations there have been some suggestions that works teams such as Mercedes and Ferrari will have the advantage.

This appeared to be true in the opening pre-season test where Mercedes and Ferrari were able to cover the most miles with the least problems.

However, Williams, who swapped Renault power for Mercedes ahead of the new 1.6-litre V6 era, are confident in their relationship with their new engine supplier.

"We're very happy with the relationship we have with Mercedes," Williams chief test and support engineer Rod Nelson told Autosport.

"They want us to do well – the more miles we do, the happier they'll be so they're clearly helping us to fulfill our objectives.

"Historically [as a] customer team, the engine guys are one side of the office or the garage, the chassis guys are the other side and you tend to have fairly disparate contact with them.

"But nowadays you spend most of your time talking to your engine engineer or the control engineer or the engine performance engineer, or the KERS technician.

"We are still working out how it is going to work, but I don't think it is entirely obvious [being a customer team] will [hurt Williams]." Planet F1