ROKiT Williams Racing has been forced to delay the start of its pre-season testing programme, the British team opting to give itself an extra day to finish the build-up of its new FW42.
After the Grove-based outfit's 2019 launch earlier this week, deputy team principal Claire Williams had warned that Williams was pressed for time after undergoing over the winter "an extremely aggressive engineering programme", and would scrap its shakedown run initially scheduled for this weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya.
"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," said Williams in a release on Sunday.
"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."
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Sebastian Montoya, the 19-year-old son of former Formula 1 star Juan Pablo Montoya, is set…
When former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto took on the role of Chief Operating Officer…
Charles Leclerc concluded the 2024 F1 season with a sense of satisfaction, the Ferrari driver…
Former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard has voiced his dismay at FIA president Mohammed Ben…
Super Aguri's application to join Formula 1 became a reality on this day in 2005,…
Ferrari roared back into contention in 2024 to deliver their strongest season in years, thanks…