Williams F1 Hit Early Trouble Ahead of Testing

In another blow to their 2019 campaign, the RoKit Williams F1 team will miss the start of Formula 1’s pre season testing on Monday. As it turns out, the build of its 2019 car is still running late.

The Grove-based outfit had earlier been forced to scrap plans for a weekend shakedown. Now, things have gone from bad to worse for them. Especially since it has been confirmed that it will not be joining other teams for the start of official running on Monday.

According to deputy team principal Claire Williams, “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.”

The Williams F1 team is coming off the back of a disappointing 2018 campaign. That year, the team’s performance fell far short of expectations.

It finished last in the constructors’ championship and made infrastructural changes in a bid to try to turn things around for the better.

Now, this delay to the start of testing will not help its chances of a recovery. However the team is determined to do its best and stay optimistic.

“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,” added Williams.

“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.”