If you’ve been following Formula One over the course of the previous two seasons, you may have noticed how quick and reliable Williams has become.
However it was Felipe Massa who made some troubling comments in Melbourne, suggesting that Williams did not have the same 1.6 liter V6 hybrid turbo engines as Mercedes AMG Petronas.
Thats where Williams chief technical officer Pat Symonds jumped in, telling Autosport that “We have no doubts over the parity of the engines from Mercedes during the Australian Grand Prix. HPP are constantly checking the data and all the power units are exceptionally close in performance.”
Symonds also stated that their aim at the moment is to further develop the car so that they can beat Ferrari and snatch 2nd place behind Mercedes in the F1 Constructors Championship.
As for competing directly with Mercedes, chief Rob Smedley knows that the German team is the benchmark right now saying that “We are moving forward all the time and we just have to hope that we can close that gap down and eventually pass them.”
Whether or not that’s going to be possible this year, remains to be seen. Our guess is that Mercedes might go relatively unchallenged this year as well, since it’s hard to develop a car that substantially, in-season.
In conclusion, yes, we believe there is engine parity when it comes to not just Williams and Mercedes but also Force India and Lotus as well. Still, that doesn’t mean that there there aren’t certain timely upgrades that benefit the factory team more than the others.
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