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Williams has confirmed that its pre-season programme will get underway on Tuesday morning, as it will sit out Monday's session.
The Grove squad launched its new car, the FW42 last week with a fresh livery and a brand new title sponsor. The team will be looking to bounce back from a tough 2018 campaign in which it ended up at the bottom of the constructors' championship with just seven points.
The team cancelled a planned shakedown of the FW42 on Saturday as it was behind schedule.
Claire Williams, deputy team principal at Williams said: “Unfortunately, we have had to delay the start of our pre-season Barcelona test to Tuesday morning. We have had an incredibly busy winter at Grove getting the FW42 prepared for the season ahead and, despite everyone’s best efforts, we need some more time before it will be ready to run.
“Our absolute priority is to always ensure we bring a car to the track that is the best that it can be and sometimes that takes longer than you’d anticipate or like. It’s clearly not ideal, but equally it’s not the end of the world.
“We will obviously have our work cut out to recover the time lost but we still have seven days of testing left and we will be maximising that time to prepare the car for the first race.”
The team has also confirmed its driver schedule for the first week. On Tuesday, rookie George Russell will debut the car in the morning, with Williams' test and development driver Nicholas Latifi stepping in for the afternoon.
Wednesday will see Latifi drive in the morning before Robert Kubica takes over in the afternoon. The final day of the first week will see both Russell and Kubica behind the cockpit, with Kubica taking the morning session and Russell ending the week for the team.
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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Replies (9)
Login to replyDRS-zone
Posts: 315
I’m not really surprised to be honest but it’s bad for their image. Specially with their new title sponsor. I wonder if they will pick up the speed as they start later already...
denis1304
Posts: 284
they didn't seriously update last years car by working on this years car and still couldn't finish it on time
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
This is painful to me. Williams isn't a team I ever legit cheered for, but to see this happen is tragic. They are falling down the bullshit tree and are hitting every branch on their descent, and nothing less than a revolution will save them. So I guess they could do with replacing Claire with a Frenchman, revolutions are to them what Hockey is to Canadians.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
I am dissapointed but hardly surprised. It's a bad start no doubt. But I will reserve judgement until I see about 100 laps of that car. That being said, I won't get tired of repeating it: Williams needs to replace Claire with someone with proper experience. Preferably someone who isn't family.
Sadtomato
Posts: 48
Amateurs!
F1todayfan101
Posts: 120
Amatures with a works level facility and more people than Hass and RP combined....
xoya
Posts: 583
Holy crap. Williams is starting to look like HRT and Marussia. I hope that they don't go bankrupt.
Pistonhead
Posts: 556
Bloody 'ell - can't believe they are the only team to miss first day practice, its a shambles really. Fingers pointing at Claire but its not Claire building this car-it's Paddy Lowe's bag.....
F1todayfan101
Posts: 120
Not just Monday i hear..... dreadful.