Pat Symonds says Williams focused development of the FW38 on tackling its recent weakness in low-speed corners.
Williams became the first team to officially unveil its 2016 car on Friday morning, releasing two images to the media. The team has finished third in the last two seasons but has failed to win a race in that time despite having the class-leading Mercedes engine.
The FW38's predecessor was notably weak in low-speed corners, while continuing to struggle in wet conditions, and technical chief Symonds says Williams has worked on trying to find solutions without compromising its performance in other areas.
"The FW37 was a pretty effective car and so we concentrated on understanding the areas where we could improve it without losing the attributes which made it effective," Symonds said. "It is no secret that the low speed performance of the FW37 didn't match its high speed performance so a lot of time was spent looking into why this was and subsequently making changes, which we hope will improve the situation. On top of this we looked at the normal physical obstacles to development that one always meets during the life of a car and tried to push those barriers back."
Williams has made no secret of its desire to perform better on an operational level in 2016 after failing to seize several opportunities, notably at the British Grand Prix when leading a one-two early on. Symonds is confident the team has made the necessary changes internally to avoid a repeat this season.
Asked about how Williams will fare in 2016, he replied: "One can never tell because no matter how much effort you put in and no matter what the magnitude of your improvements all things in sport are relative. This means the outcome of the season is not just a function of your efforts but those of your competitors as well.
"At Williams we are honest about our mistakes and try to learn from them. Just as in the design of the car we always analyse strengths and weaknesses, so we do with the team. This has led to several operational changes for 2016 which, although not particularly visible from the outside, should see the team better able to cope with the many variant scenarios that racing will inevitably throw at them.
"One strength we take into 2016 is stability. It is easy to underestimate the power of this but with the same driver pairings and continuity in the engineering team we hope to be up to speed quickly -- something particularly important with only 8 days of pre-season testing."