Russell claims light at the end of tunnel for Williams "is quite far away"

George Russell remains confident that his new team Williams will rekindle some of its historic form, but conceded that it is a "long-term process".

Williams were by far the slowest team in Australia two weeks ago, and the chances of the FW42 being improved are very slim.

The former world champions finished rock-bottom last season in the constructors' championship with Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin behind the wheel, but a complete rearrangement of its drivers line-up with Russell and the returning Robert Kubica has brought a bit of optimism to Grove.

"There is certainly light at the end of the tunnel but that tunnel's quite far away," the Mercedes-signed driver told the media in Bahrain. "We've just got to not do anything drastic because at the end of the day even if you're one of the top three teams you cannot just overcome that lap-time in a day, a week, a month or whatever.

With Williams being late to the pre-season testing in Barcelona due to its FW42 not being complete, Russell admitted he is starting to feel the effects of the lateness.

"The main limitation is aero and the downforce side of things," Russell continued. "Obviously as things were rushed probably the quality isn't up to their normal standard and we are lacking a bit in that department."