Another grand prix season, another new set of technical regulations, but one thing that isn't planned to change is the Williams team's stranglehold on the world championship.

That was the upbeat message delivered by Britain's top Formula One entrant yesterday as the world champion Jacques Villeneuve and his team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen appeared at Silverstone for he unveiling of the new Williams FW20. Villeneuve then completed a handful of shakedown laps in preparation for a programme of intensive pre-season testing which will start at Barcelona on Sunday.

"I think we go into the new season as the team to beat," said Patrick Head, the Williams technical director. "I am confident that we can be the principal challenger for the championship in 1998."

Head also believes that Villeneuve is out to overturn the perception of Michael Schumacher as the best driver in F1 today. "Jacques is very confident and controlled," he said. "The general view is that he's a very good driver, but not in Schumacher's class. He wants to put that right. He wants to show either that he is in Schumacher's class or better."

Indeed, Villeneuve yesterday identified Williams team-mate Frentzen as his main opposition ahead of arch rival Schumacher for this year's world title.

Villeneuve said: "Definitely Heinz-Harald will be a threat. Your biggest threat is always your team-mate because you are working with the same car and the same people. He did not have a good start last year, and there was some kind of problem. But he came on strong towards the end."

Ferrari and McLaren may have high hopes for their new cars, but the Williams top brass believes it will start the Australian grand prix in Melbourne on March 8th drawing on possibly more accumulated experience of the new narrow track, grooved tyre regulations than any of its rivals.

"I am not particularly enthusiastic about the new rules," said Head. "I don't particularly think this was the right way to go. I think that limiting downforce and giving us some nice big tyres, so that the cars could be thrown around a bit, would have been a better way. But these are the rules we have and it's a question of who is going to do the best job with the regulations as they are."

There is also quiet sense of satisfaction that Ferrari seemed to have squandered its apparent four week advantage, experiencing a succession of technical problems with its much-hyped F300 challenger on which Michael Schumacher's title hopes are pinned. Last week at Jerez the new Ferrari completed only a handful of laps after suffering an engine bay fire and problems with the throttle system and gearbox.

The new Williams FW20 is the first of the team's cars for seven years to be produced without the design skills of Adrian Newey who moved to McLaren as technical director last August. The first Newey-designed McLaren will be unveiled next Thursday, the last of the key F1 challengers for 1998 to break cover.