- Williams
'I won't bitch and moan because they're quicker' - Smedley
Williams head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley believes there is nothing wrong with Mercedes dominating F1 this year and says it is down to the other teams to catch up.
Following Mercedes' easy victory at the Australian Grand Prix, Red Bull led calls for a change in regulations to equalise performance in the coming years. But Smedley believes Mercedes' achievements are exactly what Formula One is about and should be praised rather than criticised.
"I don't think it's bad for the sport at all," he said. "I think Formula One is all about levels of excellence and I think they are now the absolute benchmark with the levels of excellence they have attained throughout their whole operation. It's pretty outstanding and I would take my hat off to them and say they have done a fantastic job.
"I'm not going to sit here and bitch and moan because they are quicker than us. I have been in situations with teams before where we have been dominant [Smedley was at Ferrari in the 2000s] and now I'm in a team where another team is dominant. I think if you work hard enough and do everything right then they are the rewards.
"They have worked hard enough and done everything right, so hats off to them. It's good for the sport because it shows how hard everyone is pushing and they are pushing really, really hard. It should be about levels of technical excellence and operational excellence and that's what they are attaining."
Smedley says the balance of power will eventually swing back to other teams, but he made clear that Williams would not just sit and wait for that to happen.
"The balance swings, doesn't it? The teams that are behind eventually work better and more efficiently and the teams that are in front … it's usually down to people leaving and changes in organisations and stuff like that. That's when you see big changes, and with big changes in regulations or whatever - all of a sudden there is a step backwards. But I don't think that we should, as an operation at Williams, look for them to drop the ball. We should look to attain and surpass what they are doing."
Despite Williams seeming to lose ground to Mercedes over the winter, as well as falling behind Ferrari in Australia, Smedley said the team is on target to hit its goals.
"I would say we are reasonably happy with the car development and chassis development. The numbers we were targeting, we've hit. And they were reasonably aggressive numbers as well with the rule changes we've gone through this year, because all teams lost a fair proportion of downforce. We have had to work very hard over a short period of time to get that back, and I think if you take the power unit out of it - because I think Ferrari has made great strides with their power unit - then I'm very happy with the chassis development."
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