Williams looking for performance boost - Mon 30th Jan 2006
Williams will seek to boost its baseline performance in 2006 by introducing a new 'seamless shift' gearbox as soon as possible.
The mechanism uses state-of-the-art technology to enable gear changes to be made without a momentary cut in the ignition, saving crucial fractions of a second.
Williams has tested the new gearbox extensively but is not yet confident enough of its reliability to commit to using it from the start of the season.
?We are still working on the seamless; we have got a lot of mileage on it,? technical director Sam Michael said at last Friday?s Williams launch.
?It looks good, but it?s not quite there yet. We will reserve judgement and we will obviously put something in that will finish the race.
?We will race it in 2006 as soon as we can.?
Director of engineering Patrick Head added: ?It is new technology for us and we are debugging it.
?We have got a backstop which is the same gearbox but in a slightly different configuration, but because the seamless is faster that is what we are planning to be racing.?
Michael said he expected seamless shift gearboxes to be commonplace in Formula 1 within the next year.
