Williams believes they have turned a corner after finally getting on track for testing on Wednesday.
Delays with the FW42 meant it only arrived on the third day of running in Barcelona with the team eventually conducting a 23-lap shakedown effectively in the afternoon.
There was growing speculation that technical director Paddy Lowe was under fire for creating the situation, however, publicly at least, deputy team boss Claire Williams has put on a brave face.
“I would say now we have the car on track, we’re back on track,” she told Autosport. “We’ve still got work to do, but we always said this was going to be a long road.
At a time when Williams has looked at solving their main structural issues, Claire does believe the development of a new car is one that hasn’t been addressed enough.
“I think probably we got to car build and we had to go through that process as much as we went through last season, that clearly isn’t right at Williams either,” she continued.
“We haven’t nailed that yet and we need to do some work to make sure it is fit for purpose going into 2020 but it takes time. It’s not crisis mode.”
Also Read:
- Williams not playing the blame game as 2019 car finally hits the track
- Claire Williams prepared to ‘go down fighting’ to protect team legacy
Renault technical director Nick Chester was asked by Autosport about Williams’ plight and revealed just how easy it can be for their situation to occur.
“It is really hard. Unless you lived through multiple car builds you wouldn’t realise how hard it is and how many parts are delivered right at the last minute,” he explained.
“The production guys do an absolutely fantastic job and they are chasing thousands of parts in the period of one or two weeks. They have everything turning up at nearly the same time and it is super, super busy.
“You only need one or two problems to be four or five days late, so it is a big challenge.”
He also does think Williams can still complete a solid testing program despite losing over a quarter of the time on track.
“There are ways to trim it,” Chester said. “You can prioritise all your test items and then go ‘OK, those ones are a bit more minor, we will drop them off’.
“I think what is tough is you need really, if you can, your full mileage for reliability. That helped us a lot last year. You need time in the car to understand it, so every run you have the chance to learn a bit and get drivers more into it.
“There are ways to condense it but it still hurts missing days,” he concluded.
