Damon Hill has tipped his former Williams team to provide the comeback of the Formula One season after a nightmare in 2006.

"I think that Williams are going to be bouncing back because they follow a pattern of boom and bust," the 1996 world champion, winner of 21 races with the British team, told reporters on Tuesday.

"I don't know what happens, they like to get to the top and then go back to the bottom and start again. They've been to the bottom last year and now they are going to come charging back up the hill."

Williams finished eighth overall last year with just 11 points. The team, winners of nine constructors' championships in the 1980s and 1990s, last won a race with Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya in 2004.

Now powered by Toyota engines, they start the new season in Melbourne on March 18 with a line-up combining youth and experience in Germany's Nico Rosberg and Austrian veteran Alexander Wurz.

Former test driver Wurz replaces Australian Mark Webber, who has moved to Red Bull, and the new car has looked promising in testing. Neither Wurz nor Rosberg has won a race in their Formula One careers.

Hill said BMW Sauber looked likely dark horses in a championship battle that favoured McLaren, who failed to win a race last year for the first time in a decade, and Ferrari with Brazilian Felipe Massa and Finland's Kimi Raikkonen.

The Briton suggested Massa could put considerable pressure on his new team mate.

"Even when Michael (Schumacher) was with the team, he (Massa) seemed to have engaged that team. I think that's going to be an interesting story, how Kimi finds that.

"It can't be easy being paid that amount of money and not delivering the results. That's not going to be a very comfortable place."

The former champion predicted Renault, without double world champion Fernando Alonso now that the Spaniard has joined McLaren, would take a step back after winning the last two championships.