Despite the cancellations and postponement of many of the opening Formula One races of the 2020 season there is still an anticipation that the season will get underway at some stage running a revised calendar. With this some discussion has commenced regarding the fortunes of the ROKiT Williams team in the season ahead.

After the pre-season testing had been completed there was a mixed feeling coming from the staff at Williams with various comments been made by the likes of George Russell saying that despite the improvements in the FW43 they would still be the slowest car in the field even if the gap to those in front would be significantly reduced.

But now we are seeing comments coming from outside the team in particular those made recently by McLaren driver Lando Norris. For Norris he has expressed his belief that one of the front running midfield teams McLaren will need to include Williams in its strategy decisions for those races of the 2020 season He is of the view that from his observations that Williams should now be considered to be part of the midfield battle.

In a recent interview for Autosport,com Norris spoke of how he felt that McLaren now had to take the Williams team into account. Norris said: "I think Williams are much closer. They're within the battle, basically, so we need to think about them.

"It's not like we don't have to include them on our strategy, or choose when to pit around them.

"Now we have to include them, and we're going to be racing them. It's not going to be easy to pass them.

He added: "We just have to be a bit more aware there's another team now involved.

"Apart from that, I think it's not too dissimilar to how it was last year."