Williams has traced the F41’s aerodynamic stall to the modified diffuser fences the team used in Silverstone.
Both the Williams drivers were out of qualifying at the British Grand Prix due to intermittent stalling.
As a result, Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin started from the pits at the British race after reverting to the old floor and rear wings.
For Sunday German GP, the team has elected to use the old specifications once again.
Speaking of the issue, the team’s technical director Paddy Lowe said: “The problem we had in Silverstone was primarily the result of some changes we made to the floor in the diffuser area, some fences,”
“We work very aggressively with our attempts to improve performance and we use Friday to intensively test parts.
“In Silverstone, we made a step on Friday with modifications to the diffuser which were actually an improvement in cornering and took them forward to the race, but they had a side-effect of putting the car intermittently into stall in the use of DRS.
“It was something that was entirely unexpected as a side-effect. We understand that now and we’re not running those parts anymore.
“It was not related to the rear wing, I can’t say ‘not’ entirely because these things work together – but the prime cause was not the rear wing.”
Williams tested a new wing successfully during Saturday’s final practice at Hockenheim and used it during the qualifying race. Lowe confirmed the new component worked as expected.
Williams rookie Sirotkin was the 12th fastest in the qualifying in the German race, making it the second best position after Stroll’s 11th place at Baku.
“It’s OK, we’re not claiming we’ve made any great leap forward, we’ve made a step and brought a new wing yesterday,” said Lowe.
“The good thing is that it’s done exactly what we’ve intended, both from a measured point of view and also from driver’s comments corresponding to what we hoped to achieve.
“That’s a good platform from which to build with further developments.
“Certainly, today we were relatively stronger [compared] to where we were at Silverstone.”
