Williams Barcelona Test 01:03:2019 Day Four

Driver: Robert Kubica
Chassis / Engine: FW42-01 / Mercedes-AMG F1 M10 EQ Power+
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655 km
Weather: Dry and bright 

The final day of testing for the ROKiT Williams team at the second week of testing would see Robert Kubica return to the driving duties. Even though Robert was able to complete a total of ninety laps it was a day that saw the team still have issues. Some of these would see the team rather than complete further track time working on setup would complete a lengthy period of pit stop practice. Of note was the fact that the Williams team had put all the names of the members of the Williams team on the rear wing endplate in recognition of their efforts.

With the end of the day Robert was open in his remarks as to how he was dissatisfied with how the Friday had turned out. Robert said: "We lost another day today. Of course we did some laps, but the car's state was far from optimal.

"We had some issues. Unfortunately the car was not representative to what it should be, and this had a big impact on our test, our running programme of today.

"All the information's were misleading and in some way also was difficult to get any information for Australia."

Robert's comments supported the view that the rush to get the FW42 ready and the delay did have an impact on things such as spare parts.

Robert added: "Of course I think we face a big delay, and some of today's issues is a consequence of being in a rush.

"If you struggle to have a car for the week before, you struggle to have spare parts.

"And unfortunately today was required to have bits to replace, we couldn't replace them.

"In the end we did maximum from what we have, but this maximum is not enough, because in the end the car was from optimal."

Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: For the final day of the pre-season testing we planned an ambitious programme to mirror George’s from yesterday. This involved more data gathering in the early cool track conditions which we achieved very well, followed by some performance experiments and a qualifying simulation before lunch. The long running in the afternoon was unfortunately brought to a halt because a number of critical bodywork parts had reached a stage of degradation that meant that we were no longer learning useful information from the car nor indeed for Robert. So we decided to switch our time to those final race procedural practices (starts, pit stops etc.) that we need to do before Australia. Having arrived late to the testing, our reliability during the running itself has been incredibly high. Up until today we were on track to complete our originally intended mileage and to consume all available tyre sets.

But today this car has become ultimately too tired to continue. In the interest of saving our resources for the important racing in Australia we felt it was right to change the plan. In general, the car is not as its best and this has affected our performance most particularly this morning with Robert in the qualifying simulation and to some extent with George yesterday. This is an important moment as we finish the pre-season testing to acknowledge the huge effort that has been put in by everybody to design, manufacture and operate this car. The car build and testing itself has required an extremely intense period of more than three weeks working 24x7 by the trackside team. What we have achieved despite our huge challenges is remarkable; well done to the whole team.

Robert Kubica: It is a pity to end testing with a difficult day before we head to the first race. Out of the runs that we did, we managed to learn some things, but it hasn’t given me the level of confidence that I would have liked ahead of Australia. It wasn’t the day that I was hoping for after the delay to the start of testing, but you have to take the positives out of these difficult situations.