'Realistic' Latifi targets Williams "midfield fight"

Nicholas Latifi has said there is a 'realistic' possibility his Williams team can climb the order this year despite the large carryover of machinery into this season.

Despite finishing 11th on three occasions and reaching Q2 in at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Latifi was unable to register a points finish in his rookie campaign.

In a move to reduce costs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Formula 1 pushed back the dramatic aerodynamic regulation changes to 2022 with teams agreeing to run largely unchanged machinery from 2020 again this year.

Although Williams failed to score a point last year, the team only scoring one through Robert Kubica in 2019, there were positive signs as both Latifi and George Russell raced closer to the midfield, often alongside the cars of Haas and Alfa Romeo.

“Realistically, there is an opportunity to move forward and that is what the goal is going to be," said Latifi.

"We see the handful of positions we have been in to scrape a point here and there. Sometimes not by merit and sometimes by merit. “We definitely want to be in those situations more often. A lot depends on the performance of the car and we could be more in the midfield fight.

“The car will be an evolution of last years car as we see is normally the case when F1 introduces new cars for a three-year period with the same running order over the three-years although everyone is improving."

While optimistic Williams can further close the gap on the midfield runners, Latifi warned: “I think it is unrealistic to expect a dramatic difference, [but] there is definitely scope to move forward.”

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