Williams on the verge of mutiny after car problems threaten to delay winter testing for third straight day
Williams are on the verge of an outright mutiny against their under-performing technical director, Paddy Lowe, as problems with building their 2019 car threaten to deprive the team of crucial winter testing time for a third straight day.
Even by the British team’s dismal recent standards, events of the past 48 hours have been beyond parody. At a time when Williams expected to be fine-tuning their machine ahead of next month’s opening grand prix in Melbourne, engineers have instead been kicking their heels at a hotel near the Circuit de Catalunya, with the car still stuck at their Oxfordshire headquarters.
With the car not due to arrive here in Barcelona until the early hours of Wednesday morning, Williams staff were working through the night just to ensure that it could be ready for the afternoon session. After the cancellation of last week’s planned shakedown of the Williams FW42, as well as the loss of two-and-a-half days of testing, patience with Lowe, the team’s beleaguered technical chief, is at breaking point.
Lowe, who presided over a nightmarish 2018 campaign in which Williams finished bottom of the constructors’ standings, has now failed even to deliver a car to the start line on time. His fall from grace has mirrored Williams’ own: just over two years ago, Lowe was still Mercedes’ top engineering guru, a central figure in the success of Lewis Hamilton, but he has since become the fall guy in the decline of one of British motorsport’s greatest companies.
There is understood to be fury within Williams not just at the car’s shortcomings, but at Lowe’s inability to accept responsibility. While Sir Frank Williams, the team’s founder, has been personally overseeing development work at the Grove factory, day-to-day management rests in the hands of his daughter Claire, the deputy team principal.
Next month, a behind-the-scenes documentary on Formula One will be aired on Netflix, showing previously unseen footage of Williams tearfully questioning her credentials to lead the team during last season’s Monaco Grand Prix.
In 2018, Williams collected a mere seven points from 21 races, and there is little optimism about a turnaround this year. The team invested great hope in their driver line-up, having paired Poland’s Robert Kubica, returning from a potentially career-ending rally accident, with 21-year-old British rookie George Russell, but the problems with the car appear too deep-rooted to surmount any time soon.
Publicly, at least, Russell is emphasising his team’s capacity to stage a revival. “Everyone is working as hard as possible to get it sorted,” he said. “I don’t think it will compromise us too much, to be honest. Winter testing is one thing, but once you get racing it’s a completely different story.”
On the track in Barcelona, Ferrari continued to set an ominous benchmark, with Charles Leclerc almost a second quicker than his closest pursuers. For Mercedes, hoping to emulate Ferrari’s record of six consecutive championships, the challenge could not be greater.
