The second round of this year’s pre-season testing starts in Bahrain this weekend and Williams Racing is definitely looking forward to it. After some initially promising running in Barcelona, Williams’ Head of Vehicle Design Dave Robson is looking towards Bahrain with a positive mindset.
“The main objective of the test this week is to build on the learning from the track session in Barcelona and to start to increase the performance of the car,” said Robson. “We got a useful preview of the FW44 in Barcelona and although the cars were only back in Grove for a few days before being transported to Bahrain, we were able to do quite a lot of work on them, which should help us to exploit the best performance this week.“
With Williams looking to jump up the results table this year thanks to its somewhat radical car design, getting things nailed in Bahrain will be especially important. That’s something that Robson is acutely aware of, especially considering the big difference in conditions between Sakhir and Barcelona. “Conditions in Bahrain will be more demanding than they were in Spain, with the hotter track temperatures affecting the tyre performance and the stronger wind gusts challenging the aero characteristics much harder,” he explained. “This will be an excellent opportunity to test the car in a different environment and to use the data we gather to predict how the car will perform throughout the season ahead.“
“We were reasonably happy with our work in Barcelona, but we are looking to do even better this week as we seek to push the performance of the FW44 forwards as well as ensuring that the car is fully race ready for the season ahead.”
Williams will start its running in Bahrain on Thursday 10 March. Alex Albon will run the full day on the first day of testing, with Nicholas Latifi running the whole of the second day. Both drivers will run on the third and final day of testing (Latifi in the morning and Albon in the afternoon).