Williams has confirmed that it will not participate in the opening day of Formula 1 testing on Monday in Spain, due to delays in readying its FW42.
Williams revealed last week that it had cancelled a planned shakedown due to time constraints and on Sunday morning announced that its new car will not be ready in time for Monday’s opening test day.
It leaves Williams at an early disadvantage compared to its rivals, most of whom have already shaken down their 2019 challengers during filming days.
“Unfortunately, we have had to delay the start of our pre-season Barcelona test to Tuesday morning,” said 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.”
Williams finished at the foot of last year’s Constructors’ Championship, amassing only seven points, which it accrued across just two Grands Prix.
It enters 2019 with a revised line-up in the form of Robert Kubica and George Russell.
