Williams' Chief Operations Engineer Mark Gillan is adamant the team will take a significant step forward in performance this year following a difficult 2011.
"Obviously, it will be a quite a significant improvement in performance but that is our goal and I am reasonably confident looking forward that we will achieve that goal," said Gillan during a teleconference after Williams confirmed Bruno Senna for the 2012 season.
"We want to be consistently in the top 10, going through to Q3 and consistently scoring points. I am confident we can achieve that goal."
Williams endured a very disappointing campaign last year, scoring just five points on its way to ninth place in the standings. The team has made several changes to its structure in the hope of fighting back in 2012, when it will also be using Renault engines. Gillan says Williams has altered its processes dramatically in order to make sure the 2011 errors are not repeated.
"The overall development of the car is going well and on plan," he added. "The car build has started and the process has dramatically changed from last season to make sure we capture faults along the way as quickly as possible and not have as many issues as last season. Generally, the performance trend looks encouraging and the processes on the design side have dramatically changed."
Senna, who has 20 F1 races under his belt, will partner Pastor Maldonado, who made his grand prix debut with the team last year. Gillan sees the inexperienced lineup as an opportunity for the team.
"It obviously puts added pressure on the operations side, but to me it is an opportunity," he said. "We have three reasonably inexperienced drivers but three with great potential and it is up to us as a team and the drivers to effectively unlock that potential throughout the season and maximize the performance."
Senna said the team and himself are aiming to start the season strongly and to be in a position to fight for the points in every race.
"We have talked with the team, and the intention is for the team to be back to scoring points, in the top 10 pretty much every race weekend," said the Brazilian. "Of course, with the car performance we want to bring that to the race weekend. We hope that the preseason goals mean we can attack from race one, be very competitive with Pastor and everyone else."