Williams endured a mixed season in 2009, finishing seventh in the F1 constructors' championship.

For 2010, the team will field a new look driver line-up in Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg and will run Cosworth engines after ending its deal with Toyota.

In this Q&A, technical director Sam Michael looks back over 2009 and discusses what the future may hold for the Grove-based outfit...


Q:
Thinking about 2009, what are your overall thoughts about the team's season?

Sam Michael:
2009 was a good step forward from where we've been in previous seasons, particularly from an aerodynamic perspective and in terms of consistency of the car across different tracks. It was a very competitive season this year with only a second covering the field at some races, so it was also satisfying when we were getting an extra one or two tenths out the car at those tracks. Overall, this year was a good step forward, but we didn't end it where we wanted to be.

Q:
What were the highs and lows?

Sam Michael:
I think the high points in terms of performance were when Nico was leading in Malaysia before the rain came and then Singapore before the white line incident. The car's much stronger performance at Silverstone also upped our credibility as well.

Q:
And how do you feel Nico and Kazuki performed?

Sam Michael:
Nico's done a great job for the team and scored all of our points this year. He's come a long way as a driver since he joined us four years ago and we wish him all the best. Kazuki certainly improved as a driver this year and did a lot of work setting up the car over race weekends. If anything, he drove better this year than last. In 2008 he was scoring points, but in a car that wasn't as competitive. The difference was that this year the field was so tight and therefore the grid so penalising. If you were a couple of tenths off, you just didn't cut it.

Q:
The team's three year partnership with Toyota has come to an end with the move to Cosworth. How were Toyota as an engine partner?

Sam Michael:
Our relationship with Toyota was excellent. They did some great development work for us and they always went the extra mile. We have only good memories of our time with them. It's a loss for the sport that they have withdrawn, and we wish all the staff at Cologne well for the future.

Q:
There were significant changes to the regulations for 2009 with the express purpose of improving the racing. Do you think they worked?

Sam Michael:
I think that clearly the changes made the cars easier to follow, however, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done. One of the things that wasn't addressed in the 2009 rule changes was circuit design. If you look at tracks like Barcelona where no one overtakes and take exactly the same cars to tracks like Monza, Hockenheim etc, there's plenty of overtaking. The difference is circuit layout. Organisers need to look closer at creating slower speed corners which feed onto straights and at removing chicanes. If you look at somewhere like Abu Dhabi, there are some good aspects to the circuit, but there are fundamental mistakes. There wasn't good enough racing there and the organisers need to rectify that before next year. You can't keep blaming car design. The FIA are looking into this now and will hopefully solve the problem.

Q:
Can you take us through the regulation changes for next season?

Sam Michael: