Frank Williams feels it is imperative his team capitalises on the rules overhaul for this season if they are to forget the pain of the worst campaign in their history last year.

After amassing a paltry five points in 2013, Williams certainly came out fighting in pre-season testing as their car proved reliable and quick.

Williams’s form was such that, along with Mercedes, they head into this weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix as one of the favourites to take the chequered flag.

With just one Grand Prix win to their name over the last nine-and-a-half years, the fact Williams are poised to springboard from near the back of the racing grid to the front is testament to the new sweeping regulation changes that have been introduced for this year.

“A team like Williams, with our history, facilities and personnel, should be mixing it up at the sharp end of the grid,” said Frank Williams.

“The regulation changes have reset the field to some extent, and we need to capitalise on this opportunity.

“I’m under no illusion it will take time for our new technical team to make their mark.

“But I will be looking for us to make a strong improvement from last year’s championship and regularly finish in the points at a wide range of circuits.

“Despite a few inevitable teething problems, the car has performed reliably and clocked up a good number of laps.

“Reliability will be paramount in the first few races of the season and we are looking strong in that regard.

“But performance wise we will only know where we sit when we get to Australia.”

One of the key ingredients behind Williams’s apparent resurgence has been the change in their power supplier, dropping Renault in favour of Mercedes.

The German manufacturing giant’s power units outstripped Ferrari and Renault in terms of pace and reliability during testing.

Williams added: “I know I speak for the entire team in saying how impressed we have been with Mercedes so far, both in terms of the product they have developed and the working relationship between us.

“As a world-class brand they are pushing hard to make sure they produce the best power unit on the grid, and that relentless drive will be very beneficial to us.

“The new V6 power units are very sophisticated pieces of technology that are really pushing hybrid technology to the ex-tremes.

“As we saw in testing, the Mercedes power unit ran reliably and efficiently, which will be very im-portant in the first few races of the season as the teams try to fully understand their cars.”