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May 23rd
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Williams understand reasons for failures

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The Williams Formula One team will be able to bounce back from their dismal 2011 campaign next year, according to the team's chairman Adam Parr, with the team's new technical staff now clear on what the team's problems have been.

Williams remain one of Formula One's most successful teams throughout their history, but have now gone seven years without a GP win, and have not won a title since Jacques Villeneuve's success in 1997.

Over the last few seasons, the team has been rigidly stuck in the midfield mire, but 2011 saw the team fall further back than that, scoring just five points all season long.

The poor early form of their new FW33 car caused the team to react with a cull of their technical staff, including long-tim technical director Sam Michael.

In their place have come the likes of former McLaren man Mike Coughlan and new chief engineer Mark Gillan, who have been tasked with turning around the team's fading fortunes.

And Parr believes that the team's decision to recruit their new staff midway through 2011 has helped them isolate the problems facing them, and will allow them to bounce back next season.

"It was actually put very nicely by Mark Gillan," Parr told the Autosport website this week, "Patrick [Head] said to him, 'I wish this season was over,' and Mark said, 'Everything that we're experiencing out there is vital.'"

He went on: "If Mark and the other new members of the team had joined at the end of the season, they wouldn't have seen many of the underlying problems.

"They would have seen the performance, but I think we've all had the opportunity to really get deep into the roots of it."

And with the post mortem on their 2011 problems now complete, Parr sees the team being able to make progress going into next season.

"We understand precisely where we're weak, where the opportunities are, and what we have to do to get there," he rambled, "The next question is, do we have the people and resources in place to make those changes? And the answer is, absolutely.

"To be honest we needed some fresh eyes, turning over the rocks, looking at all the nasty stuff under the rocks, and bringing it to the surface, and just getting it out there."

The team has already made changes on their car for 2012. From next season the Grove team will switch to Renault power from Cosworth, recreating the ultra-successful Williams-Renault combination from the 1990s.