|
For the ROKiT Williams Team the
opening races of the 2019 Formula One season have seen the team struggle
with performances issues with the 2019 FW42 which has seen both Williams
cars running at the rear of the field and seeing the team fail to score any
points.
Combined with this was also
issues with the supply of parts coming from issues with the production
process at the Williams factory. On top of this was the damage to the cars
of both Robert Kubica and George Russell at the recent Azerbaijan Grand Prix
which placed further demands on the stock of spare parts. This has placed
immense pressures on the Williams factory in terms of building an adequate
supply of spare parts for the race team let along looking at dealing with
the process of building upgrade components as the team works to solve the
issues with the FW42.
But the Spanish Grand Prix will
mark the first race where the Williams team can finally start the process of
applying updates to the troublesome FW42. Such are the importance of these
updates team driver George Russell is of the view that they will show
whether the team can address the performance issues with the FW42 and in
turn see a change in the teams fortunes for the rest of the season.
George would comment: “From the moment we put this car down in Barcelona we
knew we’d be having this car for the next four races or so.”
“We’ve got a few little updates coming for Barcelona and I think that will
give us a good indication of how the rest of the season will pan out.
“[They are] a number of different things, varying from aerodynamics to
brakes and so on.
“Like I said it’s not a full update but it will give us a clear direction of
where we need to focus and based on those results it will help us understand
if we’ve got any hope for the remainder of the season or not.”
"It's definitely going to get
easier from now on in and I have confidence that we are going to make
progress," he added.
"The team is working extremely hard and we have some quite exciting things
in the pipeline.
"How close that will bring us to the rest of the pack I don't know but these
[difficult] weekends are making us stronger.
"I do believe at some point we'll be able to turn it around."
As for his role in the process of reversing the teams fortunes George added:
“My task at the moment is to direct the team and point them in the right
areas where we need to focus. I feel quite a lot of responsibility to help
turn this team around and get us back to where Williams belongs to be.
“I’m enjoying that aspect of it but it’s a shame it’s not quick process,
these things always take time.”
One of the other issues that the Williams team has had to deal with has been
the absence of a Technical head with Chief Technical Officer Paddy Lowe for
"personal reasons".
Williams co-founder Patrick Head has been brought back in to assist the
team's recovery, working as a consultant.
Deputy team principal Claire Williams said Head is "acting as a guide" for
the team's engineers.
Claire spoke of the current situation at Williams: "We are now in a position
where we have all our race quantities, we have the quality on those race
quantities that we needed."
"Now we're looking to bring the upgrades that have literally been sitting on
a shelf as we've cleared the backlog out of manufacturing.
"There is some light at the end of the tunnel. I think China demonstrated
that we've brought a little bit of performance to the car, but we're still
far too far behind the ninth-placed team at the moment.
"We're doing a lot of work back at Williams.
"If anyone thinks that we're just hoping for a miracle or that things will
just go our way at some point, that's not the case." |
