Williams have had a tough and humbling start to the 2019 F1 season. The team missed out on the first two days of test 1 in Barcelona and have since been playing catch up.
While there haven’t been any glaring on-track problems for the Williams, reports suggest that things aren’t under control behind the scenes.
The staff and the upper management are at loggerheads with each other and apparently the general perception is that the team doesn’t know where it is headed.
Despite all of the backroom staff issues, Williams have been running on track, with Robert Kubica leading the pack in his first full-season in F1 post his injury.
Kubica’s talent has never been under question, but it is also his work ethic and his attention to detail that has caught the eye of F1 teams.
Claire Williams has admitted to the fact that Kubica could indeed be technical director, as he has this rich knowledge pool to feed on.
“The knowledge he [Kubica] has is phenomenal, he could be a technical director” Claire Williams said in an interview during Barcelona testing.
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Robert Kubica has also commented on the situation not being ideal for Williams, as they have missed out on quite a lot of ‘testing time’.
Kubica admitted that the lost time couldn’t be brought back and hence the team will now have to focus on how to make productive use of the time left in testing.
“Yes, that was finally a normal test day. Unfortunately, we are a bit late with the test program because we were late last week. The feelings are mixed, because on the one hand we are happy about the many rounds. But it’s not that long until the first race is over and we’re not where we want to be. ” Kubica said.
“We’ve collected a lot of data and tried different things, but we’re just starting from a driver’s point of view and still have many things to figure out. However, time is running out. I hope that in the next two days we can play around a bit more with the car and see how the car reacts to different situations and things. ” he added.
Kubica wants to deepen his understanding of the car in the last two days and hopefully get a good result come Melbourne.
“The goal remains the same, I will try to do my best and do my job, whatever is required of me,” Kubica explained.
“Ultimately, there are priorities and, of course, it does not help if we travel to Australia for the season opener with few test kilometers. I just have to make sure I make the most of the cockpit time left to me before the GP in Melbourne, both to improve the feeling and deepen my understanding of the car.” he added.
What do you think are Williams’ chances this season?
