Paddy Lowe takes leave of absence from Williams team

Williams have had the worst possible start to the 2019 F1 season, as they couldn’t get their car ready in time for the first two days of testing in Barcelona.

And when the car did make an appearance on the circuit, it didn’t quite seem to be too quick.

Now, in a major development from the Williams camp, the technical chief, Paddy Lowe has taken a leave of absence days before the first grand prix in Australia.

Paddy Lowe’s position had come under scrutiny ever since the car release delay, but he had confirmed last week that Williams wouldn’t make the hasty decision of inflicting any personnel changes due to the debacle.

However, according to a report from Autosport, Lowe is taking a leave of absence, for personal reasons.

BBC Sport – Williams technical chief Paddy Lowe leaves team after disappointing start to 2019 https://t.co/oRvtnef9mP

— Andrew Benson (@andrewbensonf1) March 6, 2019

Williams #F1 tech chief Paddy Lowe takes "leave of absence" from troubled team on eve of new season:https://t.co/uhoXw1XTGo

— Autosport (@autosport) March 6, 2019

Williams have endured a painful time in testing, with the car not being ready initially and then the drivers not being too happy with how things had transpired in the two weeks at Barcelona.

Robert Kubica is making his comeback into the sport and George Russell will be driving an F1 car for the first time this season.

The duo wouldn’t be happy with how things are panning out to be, but they need to put their foot down and get to work when the season begins in Melbourne.

Earlier this week, Claire Williams had conceded that the car delay was down to the new regulations.

There were some technical directives that did come out relatively late that didn’t help,” Williams said.

“It doesn’t help a team like ours where we don’t have the additional budget and therefore resource to throw at something if it comes in late.

“We’ve got a very tight plan with very stringently-controlled budgets to affect that plan and if something was to be thrown in at the last minute, you’ve then got to find additional resource to either do a U-turn or whatever you have to do in order to facilitate that change. So there were a few incidents like that.

“You can’t predict that, but you should certainly plan for it and make contingency plans.” she added.