Williams to miss opening day of F1 testing

The opening day of Formula 1 pre-season testing will see all teams bar Williams hit the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.

Teams have a total of eight days of testing ahead of the new season, broken up into two official four-day tests at the Spanish venue.

Williams however has revealed that it will not take part in the opening day of testing, scheduled to begin this evening Australian time.

The squad was forced to cancel a shakedown test it had scheduled for last week as the team busied itself with final preparations for the new car.

It has since revealed those delays have carried over and will see the team sit out Monday’s action.

“Unfortunately, we have had to delay the start of our pre-season Barcelona test to Tuesday morning,” said deputy team boss Claire Williams.

“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.”

All nine other teams are expected to be on track, including Alfa Romeo which will formally unveil its car at the circuit prior to testing beginning.

The team has already been on track with its new car, Kimi Raikkonen completing a shakedown test at Fiorano last week.

The remainder of the field has unveiled its cars, with a number having also completed either shakedown tests, or a filming day.

Line-up: Formula 1 pre-season test 1, Barcelona