Williams F1 preparation branded 'controlled chaos'

Sam Hall
Monday 6 February 2023 17:45

Williams sporting director Sven Smeets has branded the team's preparations for the coming season as "controlled chaos" at the launch of the FW45.

Williams became the third team to reveal its 2023 colours, following Haas and Red Bull.

With testing a little over two weeks away, all 10 teams are battling against time to finalise their new machinery with Smeets issuing an amusing assessment of the situation at Williams.

"It's controlled chaos," joked Smeets.

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"Next week we have a filming day so the car will have a run-out and we'll have another one in Bahrain before testing.

"We've done some different testing of components, of the engine and all of this, so I think we will be really well prepared for Bahrain.

"It's my second car build now, so I look to it completely differently than when I arrived here last year just a few weeks before [the launch].

"It's just very busy. I think everybody is flat-out. We want to have the race quantities in Bahrain."

Limited testing 'a shame'

Last year saw teams granted six days of pre-season running due to the radically new regulations, but this has been halved to three this term.

"That's a shame because I would have preferred to have two [tests] like last year," added Smeets.

"We're in good shape and everybody is working hard to be in good shape for the test in Bahrain and the first race."

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