Rob Smedley says Williams feels more confident making aggressive strategy calls this season after seeing a big improvement in pit stop time.
Williams has performed the quickest pit stop at all four races so far in 2016, with a rapid 2.10s turnaround for Felipe Massa at the Chinese Grand Prix. In recent seasons it was an area the team struggled with and head of performance engineering Smedley says the change has had a positive impact on decision-making.
"They are just helping us race this year," he said. "They are at the level that they need to be and that's just helping us to race and to make tactical decisions, we're not getting shafted in the round of pit stops and that's a great help for your race outcome."
Asked if it gives the pit wall more confidence, he replied: "Yeah of course it does. It just helps you so much to make those tactical decisions. We've improved all areas of that, we're communicating during the pit stops, we have much more automated systems for all of that area and we've got ourselves into the 21st century really.
"It's just helping us to be aggressive and to make decisions when we think the decision is right, you haven't got in the back of your mind 'oh I hope the pit stop is going to go alright'. That's kind of a given that if the pit stops are good and then it's just all about your tactical decisions and whether or not it's the right lap or not."
Smedley says the Russian Grand Prix was a great example, when the team successfully kept Valtteri Bottas ahead of Lewis Hamilton by pitting the Finn a lap earlier.
"It was Valtteri's against Hamilton. They pitted the very next lap so I think Hamilton opened up and used all the tyres on that lap and then they pitted the next lap to [try to] get past us.
"If that was last year then there was no doubt with the three-and-a-half second pit stops that we were doing that we would have come out behind so it just helps you race, but it's a minimal requirement really rather than anything."