Stroll believes FW41 has made solid strides on downforce improvements

Lance Stroll thinks that Williams have sorted one of last season’s major problems for the team: Downforce.

Whilst pure straight line speed wasn’t an issue for Williams, cornering speeds certainly were, and this was where the team lost a lot of time in both qualifying and races in 2017.

Sergey Sirotkin has replaced the retired Felipe Massa, making Stroll the most experienced driver in the team, and he believes that the new car has much better downforce than last year’s version.

Stroll said: “We wanted to improve the overall downforce level last year and general grip level.

“It was pretty clear we were struggling on the higher downforce circuits compared to the lower downforce circuits last year.

“So we wanted to improve that area and I believe we have improved, the car seems better in low-speed corners and even high-speed corners the downforce is working.

“That’s quite good to know the car has definitely made a step in the right direction.

“But I believe everyone’s probably made a step in the right direction so it’s just a matter of who’s made the biggest and best step.

“We’ll only know that in Australia.”