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End of 2011 was cucial for Williams turnaround - Gillan

Pastor Maldonado took Williams' first win since 2004 in Spain two weeks ago © Press Association

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Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan says his team's return to form this year is rooted in preparations made at the end of last season.

Williams won its first grand prix for over seven years at the Spanish Grand Prix after scoring just five points during the entire season in 2011. Gillan said the turn in form dates back to the final races of last year when the team addressed many of the fundamental problems with its car.

"I think the main thing that we did was last year, when the car wasn't as quick as we would have liked it to be, we targeted where we knew we had deficiencies to try to understand how we could correct them," he said. "So we used the last few races of the season as an extended test session and we re-engineered that back into this year's car. There are a few areas where we particularly pleased, where we had problems last year that we don't have this year."

Asked whether individual updates or the specific track conditions at Barcelona had helped the team make the extra step and win a race, Gillan added: "All the things have to come together. When the field is split by a tenth or so, if you don't get all your ducks lined up in a row, including the driver, then you can go from second to tenth quite quickly. It's all those aspects being aligned."

But Gillan says the team is not expecting too much in Monaco this weekend.

"From our side our goal is to finish in the points, we want to get both cars finishing in the points and we'll be happy. Anything better than that and it's a bonus."

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