George Russell has revealed Williams is yet to run a complete version of its 2019 car after delays hampered their first week of testing.
The first FW42 chassis didn’t arrive in Barcelona until Wednesday meaning the British team only had a day-and-a-half of running which was mostly restricted to aero runs.
“It was very important to get some mileage under our belt and just get a feel for the car,” the F2 champion told Racer.
“I’ve only done about 11 proper laps in the car but it gives us a good understanding of where we are at, the limitations and what we need to work on.
“It is definitely not in its full state – we’ve got some work to do to optimise everything because it is all last-minute so not everything has been 100%.
“We were trying to get the car on track in whatever means possible, which was important in itself. We just need to work hard to get everything ready for Tuesday.”
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Williams refused to attribute blame for the delays, despite rumours technical director Paddy Lowe is under fire, but more worryingly, it has also been suggested another flawed design might be the cause.
“At this stage, we’ve been so limited for mileage we have no idea what state the car is going to be in performance-wise,” Russell admitted.
“We are still trying to be positive and see how things progress over this weekend and see how things are going to be next week.
“Obviously we are behind the others in terms of experience but I’ve got full faith in the guys to do the job.”
Watching how much progress Williams can make will be a key story to follow over the final four days of testing before Melbourne this week in Spain.
