The Williams FW41 is a

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

racing car designed by Paddy Lowe and Dirk de Beer for the Williams team, to compete in the

2018 FIA Formula One World Championship The 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship was the motor racing championship for Formula One cars and the 69th running of the Formula One World Championship. Formula One is recognised by the governing body of international motorsport, the Féd ...

. The car made its competitive debut at the 2018 Australian Grand Prix, and was driven by

Lance Stroll Lance Strulovitch (born 29 October 1998), better known as Lance Stroll, is a Canadian–Belgian racing driver competing under the Canadian flag in Formula One. He has driven for Aston Martin since , having previously driven for Williams and R ...

in his second season with the team; and Sergey Sirotkin, making his competitive debut in Formula One. Williams had finished fifth in the Constructors Championship in both

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

and

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

, but saw their performance decline severely in 2018. Although the car had good reliability, its pace was poor and the team ended up at the back of the field mostly fighting the Toro Rossos. Their first points came in

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

when Stroll finished 8th. The team would not score points again until

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, when Stroll and Sirotkin finished 9th and 10th respectively. They finished 10th and last in the Constructors' Championship, their lowest ever position. However, the seven points they scored exceeded the five points scored in both 2011 and

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

Design and development

In signing Sergey Sirotkin, Williams formed an alliance with Russian racing outfit

SMP Racing SMP Racing is the motor sport endurance racing team and also motorsport management created in 2013 by Boris Rotenberg, founder of the SMP Bank of Russia. Description The goal of SMP Racing is to train and unveil new talents. The team's training ...

, which came with financial investment in the team. While discussing the investment, SMP Racing revealed that under the terms of the agreement their investment would specifically be spent on technical development of the FW41 instead of being used to cover the costs of day-to-day operations. Testing and development work was carried out by

Robert Kubica Robert Józef Kubica (; born 7 December 1984) is a Polish racing and rally driver. He was the first and, , the only Polish racing driver to compete in Formula One. Between 2006 and 2009 he drove for the BMW Sauber F1 team, promoted from test d ...

. The role was Kubica's first with a Formula One team since his 2011 rallying accident that almost resulted in the traumatic amputation of his arm. The car had problems with its development mainly being cooling, packaging and the aerodynamics which resulted in its uncompetitiveness.

Competition history

2018 was the worst year for Williams since 2013. Although its reliability was good, the car was consistently slow. The car scored points on only two occasions: the first was Stroll finishing 8th in

, and the second was at Monza where the team achieved a double points finish with Stroll finishing 9th and Sirotkin finishing 10th.

Complete Formula One results

( key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) Driver failed to finish the race, but was classified as they had completed more than 90% of the race distance.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams FW41 Williams Formula One cars 2018 Formula One season cars