2009 has so far been a horrid year for the Williams Formula One team. Despite plenty of early promise with a competitive machine, they have managed no higher than seventh in the constructors’ standings.

It’s actually the worst start to a season for Williams since 1988, and is the first time in ten years that one of their drivers (Nakajima) has failed to score a point in the first six races.

Frank Williams and Patrick Head will be extremely disappointed with their poor showing because the team has actually built a very good car.

The new regulations for 2009 handed Williams a golden opportunity to catch the sport’s frontrunners, and at the start of this year they appeared to have done just that. Kazuki Nakajima set the quickest time of anyone during winter testing at Jerez, and Nico Rosberg went on to dominate practice at the Australian Grand Prix before setting fastest lap of the race.

Williams looked like a force to reckon with.

Sadly it hasn’t worked out that way and the team has failed to translate their promise into solid results. The frustration within Williams must be enormous as they seem to be wasting a decent car.

Although Nico Rosberg’s stunning practice times are the direct result of light fuel loads, there is still some genuine speed to be found in the FW31. The car should have scored a lot more than just 7.5 points.

There are a number of reasons why team is currently falling short of its potential.

The drivers should bear some responsibility for the lacklustre results, in particular Kazuki Nakajima who has made an alarming number of mistakes.

The Japanese driver crashed into the barriers all by himself at Albert Park and made a similar mistake again yesterday at Monaco. He spun three times during the Chinese Grand Prix, and lost his front wing at the starts in Bahrain and Spain.

Nakajima has also been anywhere between five-tenths to a full second behind Nico Rosberg on raw pace. He does not appear to have matured significantly from his rookie year.

Kazuki’s reputation is not helped by his poor qualifying performances that often see him start on a heavy fuel load.

Nico Rosberg hasn’t been that spectacular either. With the exception of Malaysia he has not been starting races very well and some believe his pace is not consistent enough in machinery that is capable of quick times.

After the Spanish Grand Prix both Patrick Head and Sam Michael made statements about Rosberg’s inconsistency, and suggested it was the reason for his discouraging eighth place finish.

That might not seem like a big deal, but Williams’ management have never had anything but glowing praise for their lead driver in the past so it might be a case of them directing their frustration in Rosberg’s direction.

Perhaps Nico has not developed into the superstar they hoped he would. After all, Williams did knock back a massive cash offer form McLaren for his services.

However, the German driver hasn’t been helped by some needless strategic blunders that have not been his fault.

The Monaco Grand Prix provided a good example.

Williams put Nico on a long and heavy middle stint to avoid spending too many laps on the tricky super soft tyres late in the race. However, the extra time required at his first stop meant that Massa and Webber were able to get ahead, and the heavy car also prevented Rosberg from launching a counter attack. A more conventional strategy could have seen him finish fourth.

Williams made an even worse call in Shanghai when they pitted Rosberg behind the Safety Car at the start and fuelled him heavy. The race got underway earlier than expected, and Nico was left at the back of the field with a very slow machine.

Later in the race the team put intermediates on his car hoping the rain would stop, but it didn’t and Rosberg fell even further behind.

It was a disaster.

The team also made a mistake in Malaysia by putting intermediates on Rosberg’s car instead of full wets when the monsoonal rain arrived. A number of other teams made the same decision but it allowed those who didn’t to jump ahead.

Rosberg beautifully led the first fifteen laps of that race, but ended up in eighth.

The team might need to think about their trackside operations in the same way that Ferrari recently have.

With that in mind Williams will be hoping for a big haul of points in Turkey.

The Istanbul Otodrom might offer them a chance to be competitive because it will favour the more aerodynamically friendly cars. The Williams seemed fairly efficient through the fast sweeping bends in Sepang so it might give them the advantage they need to land a podium.

The whole team will certainly be feeling the pressure. They haven’t won a race now since 2004 and will want to make sure their current form is just a long slump and not a permanent slide into obscurity.

The decline of Williams mimics that of Tyrrell, who also went from championship success to also-ran status. Ken Tyrrell’s team became the sports perennial tailenders, and were eventually sold after scoring just twelve points in their last four years.

Williams will be hoping the commercial reforms to F1 being debated at the moment will ensure they don’t meet the same fate.

The team has secured a budget for this year and next, thanks in part to advance payments by Bernie Ecclestone, but are losing RBS as a sponsor and will need to gain more stable funding to stay afloat in the long term.

A budget cap next year, and some further changes to the regulations, might give Williams the chance to vault back up the grid permanently. If a cheaper version of F1 does give the team that opportunity they will need to make the most of it.

They certainly haven’t done that in 2009.