Williams launch their 2016 car; the FW38

The Williams team has unveiled its FW38 ahead of the new Formula 1 season this morning; with the team conceding it will be “a challenge” to retain its place as the best of the rest behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

The 2016 car, that will make its debut at the first pre-season test in Barcelona on Monday, again bears the iconic blue, red and white stripes that have become synonymous with the team over the past two seasons (see picture below).

But after finishing third in the constructors' championship in 2014 and '15, in an statement to the media today, Williams Team Boss Sir Frank Williams knows it will be a tall order for the top three spots this season. Williams stated the following:-

'Williams has started to cement our position back amongst the front-running teams after finishing third in the championship in the past two seasons. This has been a great achievement given the resources of those around us.

'Staying where we are will be a challenge in itself, but we are determined to keep improving because only winning will ever be good enough. We have a very stable team going into 2016, with Felipe and Valtteri teaming up for a third successive season. They work well together and both have the ideal blend of speed and consistency.

'Our technical team has also remained very consistent which will be to our advantage and we have some of the best engineering minds on the grid at our disposal. We have a busy couple of weeks of testing coming up to learn more about our package and to refine the car ahead of the first race. We will have to wait until Melbourne to find out exactly where we stand in the pecking order, but I'm confident that our hard work over the winter will stand us in good stead.'

As Williams says himself, for Williams to remain in the position that they ended last season will be extremely difficult; given the fact that not only will they improve their performance on the track but also their competitors will too. But the fact that they have retained their driver line up with Massa and Bottas will only help the team push forward to get the car in the best position possible to battle their rivals on the track.

Of course the Williams team do have some of the best guys working for them in the sport eg. Rob Smedley who has a vast range of experience while also having great intelligence and gut instinct that will not only help them get the best out of the car but also maintain that level of developing it too.

In her own interview with the media today, Deputy team principal Claire Williams believes that the FW38 is an improvement on last year's car given the stability in the regulations and is convinced that the team can keep the likes of Red Bull, Renault, McLaren and Force India at bay over the coming campaign. Williams said the following:-

'2016 promises to be a very competitive year in Formula 1 and there will be a number of strong teams who have us in their sights. We are confident we have made a step forward over the winter and the FW38 will build on the strengths of the FW37 and address some of its weaknesses. We started design work on the car earlier than normal and hopefully this extra development time will stand us in good stead.

'The car we are launching today is by no means the final product. We are already planning updates for Melbourne and will be pushing for constant improvements over the course of the season.

'Williams enters 2016 in a strong place. We have a great team of people and over the past two years we have started to regain our competitive edge. Now we need to build on that and take this team back to where we all want it to be.'

From what Claire has stated in her interview today, the field is going to be competitive this season and their target will be to beat them as Williams will also want to beat them and also step up another level on the track if they can. But she is confident in what her team have managed to achieve with the FW38 and the time they have spent on it will prove fruitful.

I think we can all safely say that the car Williams have launched today will not the be final car and it will be developed over the course of the season in order to get the best possible position on the track. But the pictures of the FW38 are simply stunning in my eyes and I really, really like it as it looks more polished, refined and ready to take the track by storm.

But overall as Williams says, all we can do right now as F1 fans is what until the first race in Melbourne to see where the pecking order lines but as Frank's daughter Claire as also stated they are in a great position as a team and have a lot of momentum from the past two years that is a solid foundation for the team and the perfect way to try and surpass this if they can this season and back to the glory days of past seasons.

Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa