Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe says his team needs to convert its Chinese Grand Prix disappointment into "constructive development" for the rest of 2017.
Following up on a points finish in Australia's season-opener, the Grove-based team made a positive start to the weekend in Shanghai, with both its drivers qualifying in the top ten on the grid. That was as good as it got for Williams however, as Felipe Massa struggled to 14th, while Lance Stroll was taken out in a first-lap tangle with Sergio Perez.
With little time to recover ahead of the upcoming race in Bahrain in just a few days, Lowe was quick to issue his team with a rallying call in the wake of a lackluster performance in China.
"These are the days where we need to convert our disappointment into constructive development," he said. It was a tough day for us. It was always going to be a difficult and long afternoon in these mixed conditions.
"Unfortunately, Lance's race ended very quickly after being hit from behind at Turn 10, which was a shame after his strong qualifying result yesterday. On Felipe's side, it was an incredibly painful afternoon and he was lacking in grip throughout."
Lowe admits that while Williams could have gone about its strategy more effectively, being unable to extract maximum performance from the FW40 was ultimately the biggest factor in the team's lowly result.
"There are lots of things we would have done differently with hindsight. I think everyone was planning on a one-stop race with dry tyres but almost the entire field needed to do an extra stop.
"Unfortunately, we just weren't able to show the real pace of the car today, so there's a lot of work and analysis we need to do back at base in order to come back stronger in future."