AT&T Williams launches FW33

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AT&T Williams Team unveiled its 2011 Season Car FW33 at Valencia Circuit, Spain

AT&T Williams team had launched its 2011 season car at Valencia Circuit on 1st Feb, 2011 for the first of the four official Pre Season testing and released images in an interim colour.

The team have stuck with Williams’s traditional navy blue colour scheme, with the look of the car following this year’s popular trend of a high nose, detailed airboxes and scuplted sidepods.

The Cosworth-powered FW33 will get its first debut on track today when Rubens Barrichello will give the car its maiden run. The Brazilian driver will then share Wednesday’s testing time with new team mate and GP2 champion, Pastor Maldonado. The F1 rookie will then take over testing duties fully for the final day on Thursday.

In a recent interview, Barrichello described this year’s Williams-Cosworth FW33 as “aggressive”, a sentiment which is also shared by technical director Sam Michael, who speaking with AT&T Williams official website said “Until you start testing, you’re never sure how you’re going to stack up against the opposition, but we’re optimistic. We think this is a good car, but we’ll have a better overall picture in a few weeks time.”

Adding that the new rules for 2011, which include the ban on double diffusers and the F-duct, plus the re-introduction of the KERS system, and the arrival of a new tyre supplier, Pirelli, for the first time in five years. Compelled the team to take an innovative approach to its 2011 challenger.

“The design of this year’s car has been pretty smooth,” Sam said “We’ve improved our way of working by increasing the communication between the mechanical and aerodynamic departments, and that improved our decision making processes. It allowed us to increase the optimisation time spent on each part of the car.”

The car seen at today’s Valencia test is the first iteration of the FW33. This ‘launch spec’ will be replaced by an aero upgrade at the first race in Bahrain and there will be many others during the course of the year. Sam Michael and his technical team expect aerodynamic performance to reach the same levels as 2010, despite there being less aero freedom in the rules.