Williams will miss subsequent week’s opening take a look at of the 2026 Formulation 1 season.
The crew confirmed in an announcement on Friday it is not going to participate in any of the 5 days of operating on the Circuit de Catalunya starting on Monday.
Williams’ assertion stated it has “taken the choice to not take part in subsequent week’s shakedown take a look at in Barcelona following delays within the FW48 programme as we proceed to push for max automotive efficiency.”
“The crew will as a substitute conduct a collection of checks together with a VTT [virtual track testing] programme subsequent week with the 2026 automotive to organize for the primary official take a look at in Bahrain and the primary race of the season in Melbourne.”
The crew held a web based ballot to resolve which particular livery it could use for pre-season testing. Williams could have two extra alternatives to run its automotive within the livery when testing resumes at Bahrain Worldwide Circuit in February.
“We’re trying ahead to getting on monitor within the coming weeks and need to thank all our followers to your continued assist,” the crew added. “There’s a lot to stay up for collectively in 2026.”
Groups are allowed to run on as much as three days of subsequent week’s five-day take a look at in Barcelona. McLaren have already indicated they won’t participate within the first day of operating.
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A number of of Williams’ rivals have already run their new vehicles, together with Mercedes and Alpine, who use the identical energy models. Ferrari are operating at Fiorano at the moment and newcomers Cadillac, one among their engine prospects, have additionally run. Racing Bulls have run their Purple Bull-Ford powered automotive at Imola and Audi’s new works entry debuted in Spain two weeks in the past.
Williams skilled an identical delay in 2019 once they failed to finish their new automotive in time for the beginning of testing. On that event they missed two-and-a-half days of operating.
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