Williams chief hails F1's new diversity

(CNN) -- Williams technical director Sam Michael believes the Formula One team's new car will keep pace with the sea-change of technological advancement in design of vehicles for 2011.

The Britain-based outfit's FW33 has been running in tests since the start of this month in interim colors, but its official blue-and-white livery was launched on Thursday.

"One thing that's very interesting about Formula One now is that if you look at the cars there are some very interesting concepts out there," Michael told reporters.

"And the reason why is because the rules have been restrained so much on bodywork and you can do very little on the diffuser now. Teams have had to push very hard in other areas and take much bigger risks than they would have done in the past."

Michael highlighted Lotus Renault's forward exhaust and Toro Rosso's double floor as design innovations along with the Williams' tight rear end.

"These are all things that potentially some of them you could have done before, but you didn't because there was much bigger gains for much lower risk," he said.

"And I think that it is great for Formula One because the cars don't look the same, they do look different, and everyone's trying different concepts."

The Australian has been at Williams since 2001, having previously been a race engineer for German drivers Ralf Schumacher and Heinz-Harald Frenzen at the now defunct Jordan team.

Michael, who has been Williams' technical director since 2004, revealed the new car's innovations.

"We ended up with a pull-rod suspension to improve air to the rear wing. And that's really where the gearbox comes in as well, as the whole driving force behind it is to improve airflow to that rear lower wing," he said.

"We saw very early on in the aerodynamic development that this -- along with exhaust-blowing -- was going to be a key differentiator this year.

"The driveshaft angles that we have had to put the car through are very extreme. They are higher angles than anyone has ever done in Formula One before. It took a lot of dyno testing -- we've completed many thousands of kilometers."

Williams, which will become the first F1 team to make a public share offer next month, now has an extra fortnight to prepare for the start of the new season in Australia after the March 13 race in Bahrain was canceled to anti-government protests in the Gulf kingdom.

Drivers Rubens Barrichello of Brazil and Venezuelan rookie Pastor Maldonado will continue to test the FW33 in Barcelona from March 8-11.

"We have had no issues with the transmission, no issues with the rear suspension, no problems at all, which is great," Michael said of the Spanish test sessions so far.

"The fundamental part of the car is right and it enables us to just concentrate on performance. There have been a couple of little annoying system problems, but generally it has been pretty good."