Williams says “relatively late” technical directive changes surrounding the revised aerodynamic regulations played a part🅺 in the delay꧙s it endured with its 2019 Formula 1 car. 

The British squad was forced to miss the opening two days of pre-season testing i🌳n Barcelona after encountering delays with its FW42 car, which deputy team principal Claire Williams says were partly caused by some late changes to the new aero rules introduced for 2019. 

“There were some technical directives that didn’t come out until relatively late which doesn’t help🧔,” Williams explained. 

“Particulaဣrly a team like ours, when we don’t have the additional budget and therefore resource to throw a꧂t something if it comes in late. 

“We have a very tight plan, with very stringently controlled budgets to affect that plan and if something is thrown in in the last minute, you then have to find addiꦅtional resource to either do a U-Turn or do what you have to do to fac🦩ilitate the change. 

“There were a few incidents like that. You can’t predict🍨 that but you should cerജtainly plan for it and build in contingency. It’s something we have to take into consideration for the next car build time.”

Williams moved to dismiss a number of theories for the reasons behind its delays, including rumoured issues with external suppliers and a lack of budget.&nb🧜sp;

“I think there w♔ere many stories around what potentially could have been the cause of it,” she🌃 said. 

“A couple I read [said] was that there were issues with external suppliers - th🧸at wasn’t the case - or that financially, we were in a difficult posi💖tion and that had an impact on car build - it didn’t. 

“I think we take for granted sometimes that we’re goiಞng to get one car to the test track and two cars to a race track but Williams still designs and builds our race cars in house, in their entir💟ety. 

“There are 22,000 parts to our car which we have to design, manu𒀰facturer, and assemble, which we have to put through crash testing. That’s an enormous job and we 🦩didn’t make it for a number of reasons.” 

Williams said an extensive review into the situation remains “a few weeks away” after the team’s attentions were fully focused on recovering lost time in i﷽ts pre-season testing programme. 

“There hasn’t been any time,” she added.𝄹 “There is some work that has been started but it will probably take us a few weeks to compile it. 

“And we have to get it right because if we don’t get the revie♎w right, we won’t get next year’s programme right. So we have to take our time and make sure we get it right for next year.”

While ﷺWilliams did complete some decent mileage in the second week of testing, it does not appear to have made the competitive s🍸trides it would have hoped for as it looks to move back up the pecking order after finishing last in the 2018 constructors’ championship. 

“Clearly we don’t want to be at the back again but this is a journey, and other teams have do🌼ne an exceptional job to maybe make greater inroads than maybe we have🎃,” Williams replied when asked about the team’s prospects for the Australian Grand Prix. 

“But we’ll w😼ork hard to make sure we recover from where we were last year to where we may be currently.”