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Williams has 'turned the corner'

The re-established engine deal with Renault has coincided with an upturn in fortunes at Williams © Sutton Images

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Sir Frank Williams believes that his team has "turned the corner" and is on track to return to the front of the grid.

It has been eight years since Williams last won a grand prix and 15 years since its last championship, with the steady decline culminating in the team scoring just five points in 2011. Having gone with a younger driver line-up and refreshed the structure of the technical team, Williams has enjoyed a much more productive season so far this year which has already yielded 18 points.

Williams told Sky Sports that the first race of the season - where Pastor Maldonado crashed out on the last lap attacking Fernando Alonso for fifth place - had proven a real shot in the arm for the team.

"The team has struggled in the last two or three years," Williams said. "And manifestly earlier this year it became apparent that this year's car was a good car, a much better car than previous vehicles. But that was the first race of the season where they really demonstrated that of which it was capable and that was very encouraging for everybody here. A lot of people work here very hard and they needed a light at the end of the tunnel and they've got a bright one in front of them."

Having been used to challenging for championships on a regular basis in the nineties, Williams also said that the team had the infrastructure in place to return to the front.

"I think we'll do better as the season goes on, we must do better, and we have the equipment to do that. We've been much better than this before in the past but that's rather too long ago to mention really. We really have to pull our socks up as I say in an old fashioned way, and make better racing cars. That's the basic requirement of any grand prix team, to make his cars better than everybody else's, get the best drivers you can to follow of course - they generally follow the best cars, the best teams - and we seem to have definitely turned that corner and are engineering and designing our way back towards the top. That's what I think should and might happen."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.