Zoom Catious optimism ahead of the 2009 season

As the work progressed with the development of the Williams FW31, key bits of information about tyre performance were needed in order to decide the fundamental layout of the car, which made last April's first on-track test of Bridgestone's 2009-spec slick tyres a crucial fact-finding mission.

The slicks generate eight percent more grip than last year's grooved rubber and this four-day test at Barcelona gave Williams F1's design team all the ammunition they needed to work out the weight distribution and suspension geometry on the new car.

"There were so many factors to consider with the new car, but the tyres – being the contact patch to the asphalt – were the most fundamental," says Technical Director Sam Michael.

"How they interact with everything else on the car is fundamental to performance and those early tests gave us important information about the slick tyres," he continues. "We've had to do things like significantly stiffen the suspension to cope with the increased forces and change the kinematics, all due to the extra mechanical grip available."

Throughout all this, another aerodynamic factor needed to be taken into account: heat rejection. The lack of chimneys in the sidepods, thanks to the new 'R75 rule,' means that all heat has to exit via the rear of the car. That's why the FW31 has sprung cooling exit louvers for the oil and water on the sides of the cockpit and for the gearbox on the sides of the airbox.

The last of the FW31's major performance differentiators is KERS, and it is more so in Williams F1's case as it opted for a different approach than that used by the other teams.

The system recovers the normally wasted kinetic energy generated by the car under braking and stores it using a mechanical flywheel that spins at over 40,000rpm. That power is made available to the driver via a boost button, which, under the current regulations, equates to a power gain of 80bhp for 6.6s per lap.

"KERS is a fantastic thing for Formula One," says Michael. "Although we may not use ours at the first race, it will be effective and it's the kind of technology that Formula One should be embracing. The current KERS system is worth about 0.3s per lap, but the lap time benefit will increase as the FIA increases the power and energy available in the coming seasons."