Williams clarifies false reports over FW42 delay

Claire Williams has moved to clarify a number of stories in the media regarding the Williams team's 2019 car delays that she says are false, and has maintained her stance regarding the possibility of the team collaborating with a manufacturer in future.

Williams were forced to miss a scheduled shakedown prior to the first week of pre-season testing in Barcelona when it emerged that the team were struggling to get their FW42 car completed on time.

Those delays then ran into the following week and Williams were forced to miss the opening two days of testing, with deputy team principal Williams describing the situation as "embarrassing" for the nine-time constructors' champions.

"I still can't give you a full breakdown, and as I said, I wouldn't necessarily want to either because I don't think it's right to go into great, glorious detail as to what happened," said Williams.

"I think there were many stories around what potentially it could have been the cause of it. A couple that I read was that there were issues with external suppliers which wasn't the case, or that, financially, we were in a difficult position and that had an impact on the car build - it didn't.

"There are 22-odd thousand parts to a car, which we have to design, manufacture, assemble, and then put through crash testing etcetera and that's an enormous job. We just didn't make it for a number of reasons and I think it can happen, and I think we've seen historically that it can happen.

A century for #GR63 yesterday and now #RK88 has pushed the FW42 over the 100-lap mark for today ????

Good work team ????#F1Testing pic.twitter.com/WB3YafIFMk — ROKiT WILLIAMS RACING (@WilliamsRacing) February 27, 2019

"We just need to make absolutely sure the situation doesn't happen again."

When asked what the fallout from the delays would be for the team, Williams admitted they had had a negative impact on the team's run programme in testing but a full debrief of the cause and impact of the issues had not yet been carried out.

"It's clearly not what we wanted to happen," she explained. "It's compromised our test programme to a degree we're obviously trying to make up for the time that we lost, and I hope that when we get to Australia, or probably a bit further down the line, we will have forgotten about it and moved forward.

"There hasn't been any time [for an internal debrief on the issues]. We're making sure the efforts are focused currently on making sure that we get the programme covered that we need to here.

"A lot of people that would have been involved in any after-action review are clearly busy concentrating on the programme here. There is some work that's has been started, but it will probably take us a few weeks to fully compile that, and we have to get it right because if we don't get the review right we're not going to get next year's programme right."

#RK88 sporting some fancy aero rakes this morning as we continue to work through our programme ????#F1Testing pic.twitter.com/i3ExtPOUzK — ROKiT WILLIAMS RACING (@WilliamsRacing) February 27, 2019

Williams confirmed that the 2019 rule changes had also played some part in the team's car delays by stretching their resources but reiterated that a Haas-style collaboration with a manufacturer team was not something she would be likely to consider in the near future.

"It was [a factor]. There were some things and technical directives that came out relatively late, which doesn't help, particularly a team like ours," said Williams.

"We don't have the additional budget and therefore resource to throw at something if it comes in late. We have a very tight plan, and stringently controlled budgets to affect that plan."

She added: "That's something we need to take into consideration for next time.

"I was very vocal [last year] about teams that do everything in house vs buying [parts in].

"It hasn't been a conversation that's come up at Williams currently but I know there have been continued conversions around collaborations and what the FIA and FOM are going to be doing about them.

"I still believe that that is the DNA of our sport and we should maintain it, and so it's not something that I'm looking at in detail in to take Williams down that road."

MORE: Sirotkin ‘feels really sorry’ for struggling Williams
MORE: Alonso confirms F1 retirement might not be permanent