Felipe Massa is hopeful that Williams can improve this season after they adopted an “aggressive” and “quite interesting” approach with their 2018 challenger.

Williams didn’t have the best campaign last year as they finished a distant fifth in the standings, more than 100 points behind fourth-placed Force India.

However, they are confident of taking a step forward this year as the design of the 2018 car is the first that has been overseen by technical boss Paddy Lowe.

Massa, who retired at the end of last season, says the 2018 entrant is quite different from the FW40.

“I saw the new car in the windtunnel and I saw so many changes that it looks quite interesting,” he told Autosport.