Claire Williams, deputy team boss of the squad which carries her name, has admitted she’s been left embarrassed by the team missing the opening two days of pre-season testing in Barcelona.
According to Williams, the impact of the delays only became apparent late in proceedings, forcing it to cancel its planning shakedown test on Saturday and skip the opening day’s running in Spain.
“We thought we could get everything that we needed together in order to make Tuesday, but then parts just weren’t coming through as we thought they would, or in the time that we had planned,” Williams explained.
“So it transpired that we were not able to make it until today (Wednesday), 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 (team base) 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.
“This is not a situation that we anticipated, it’s certainly not a situation that we ever wanted to find ourselves in.
“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.”
The team arrived in Barcelona with the FW42 in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with George Russell completing 23 laps over the course of the day.
The opening Formula 1 pre-season test concludes this evening (AEDT) before the second and final four-day test commences next week.
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