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Williams: Testing delay is embarrassing

Published on 20 Feb 2019 15:47
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By: Fergal Walsh

Deputy team principal at Williams Claire Williams admits that the current situation that the team finds itself in is "embarrassing".

The Grove squad made its first appearance at pre-season testing on Wednesday afternoon, after it was delayed from starting on Monday or Tuesday. The car arrived in Barcelona in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and set its first lap shortly after the start of the afternoon session.

The team was behind schedule on new parts, which also prevented it from completing its shakedown last Saturday. Speaking to media including GPToday.net in Barcelona, Williams described how the situation unfolded.

"It became apparent quite late on that we weren't going to make the shakedown and subsequent to that, not make the first day," Williams said. "We thought we could et everything that we needed together in order to make Tuesday, and then parts just weren't coming through as we thought they would, or in the time that we had planned.

"So it transpired that we were not able to make it until today, but I am not going to into any detail as to why that happened. I don't think it's appropriate to discuss the ins and outs of what went wrong. Completing that inquest has not happened at Grove yet."

"We're clearly aware of some of the issues, but it's too early in the day to discuss any of the detail and it's probably something we wouldn't do anyway. We need to analyse what went wrong and then resolve it so it doesn't happen again."

Williams is already well behind the rest of the teams, with Ferrari racking up over 300 laps in the first two days alone.

"This is not a situation that we anticipated, it's certainly not a situation that we ever wanted to find ourselves in, Williams added. "Clearly, we're not just disappointed, but it's embarrassing, not bringing a race car to the circuit when everyone else has managed to do that, particularly for a team like ours that has managed to bring a car to testing for the last 40-odd years."

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Replies (5)

xoya

Posts: 583
It sure is.
We will all forget about it though, if you make a car that is not dead last.
- + 0
- Feb 20 2019 - 17:32
- Ram Samartha
  
  Posts: 1,172
  Pretty unbelievable that an F1 team could miss a deadline like this. Any other industry and heads would roll. C'mon not scheduling parts to arrive on time? Inexcusable really.
  + 0
  
  Feb 20 2019 - 18:45
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Its dismal to say the least. This just shouldn't happen, especially considering this is Williams. The Williams! It shouldn't be physically possible for this to occur.
  + 0
  
  Feb 20 2019 - 19:30
Pistonhead

Posts: 556
It's pathetic. F1 is the cutting edge of technology, planning, strategy, design, preparedness. Williams have F%%ked up here and yes, there needs to be some changes. Some say its early days and don't stress out - but this is a results business and if you're not up to the job, move on. Claire needs to go for the sake of the team, she's brilliant in many ways, but she hasn't yet shone for me in leadership and she's no engineer. It comes from the top and Im sorry to say this, but change now will be better than change later.
- + 0
- Feb 20 2019 - 23:23
f1ski

Posts: 726
Williams is suffering a slow death. I remember when they were one of the best chassis especially on the low drag circuits. Seems that they took a path where no one could correct the deficiencies due to a basic lack of understanding of how the data correlated to performance. Now they cant get one car ready for testing. Either they dont have the right people or not enough people. Personally I think F1 revenues sharing has only contributed to williams's performance demise as the money kept coming in despite its lack of performance.
- + 0
- Feb 21 2019 - 00:30