With the 2022 F1 season being just a week away, Williams F1 Team believe they are in a good position as the final pre-season testing session in Bahrain comes to an end. Day 2 was a struggle for the British team when they experienced a fire at the rear of the car that would limit a lot of their running. However, 124 laps on day 3 for Nicolas Latifi and 18 laps for Alex Albon has raised spirits for when F1 returns to Bahrain next Sunday.
Head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson, said “The conditions throughout the test were warm and breezy, with the wind changing direction late on day two. With the change of wind direction came a drop in temperature, which gave us an opportunity to test the car and the tyres in a useful range of conditions.”
“Inevitably, the test was extremely busy and after the damage done to the car early on day two, we had to make a few changes to the plan. Although frustrating to lose a lot of track time, we exposed an issue which we have now been able to fix, and we were able to complete 142 trouble free laps on the final day.”
“We have a lot to work through over the next few days before we run the cars again here in Bahrain, but we are in a good position as we head into the 2022 race season.”
Meanwhile, Williams CEO and team principal, Jost Capito, was optimistic as the team look forward to the start of the season.
“It was a tough test. [Completely] different temperatures than we had in Barcelona – different track, very different conditions; and it’s always difficult with a [completely] new car to have various conditions – but that’s what everyone has to go through.”
“Today was a very good day and we could catch up a bit from our misfortune we had yesterday, where we missed most of our time to drive because of an incident. Today we had quite a good day, did a lot of milage, did a race distance, [and a] qualifying simulation.”
“We will see where we get next week, because today the situation and the track conditions were changing all the time; so, I think nobody knows where we are in terms of performance, but we will see where we get next week.”
Williams finished the 2021 F1 championship in eighth place after scoring 23 points with their previous lineup of George Russell and Latifi – though with the upcoming season seeing a change in regulations, the iconic British team will be hoping to finish more races towards the front of the pack.
