Williams’s top brass believe the team’s upward curve this season will result in a long-overdue victory. The Grove-based marque have re-emerged over the past few months as a force to be reckoned with, scoring 77 points in the last four races.
That included a run of three successive podiums for Valtteri Bottas as the emerging Finn finished third in Austria and runner-up in the two races that followed at Silverstone and Hockenheim.
With the car appearing to possess a quicker straight-line speed than the dominant Mercedes, Williams feel their first win since the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix is in the offing, particularly at fast tracks Spa and Monza that follow after the current summer break.
Deputy team principal Claire Williams said: “The team has done a great job this year to turn everything around, and we’re building towards that (a win).
“We’ve still a lot of work to do. Mercedes are quite far ahead at the moment.
“We closed that gap a little bit in Germany, so it will be exciting to see what we can do moving to Spa and Monza.
“I’d like to think the faster circuits will be to our advantage.
“Obviously the Mercedes power unit (in the car) has helped to drive our competitiveness this year, so it’s absolutely a factor.”
Rob Smedley, head of vehicle performance and a key figure behind the scenes who has played a part in the turnaround in Williams’s fortunes, also believes a win at Spa or Monza is “a possibility”.
Smedley added: “Both of those tracks will suit our car very well, I would have thought, but I’ve said before, we don’t fear anywhere really.
“The ambition of the team is obviously to win the world championship, and in order to do that you have to beat everybody.
“We know the world championship is a little bit one-sided this year, but that doesn’t stop us preparing ourselves for the years to come.
“Running at the front and winning races is something this team needs to re-learn how to do.
“You saw once we re-learned how to be slick enough to get podiums they kept falling out of the jackpot machine at us.”