George Russell says Williams are finally beginning to make serious progress with their new chassis following the team’s delayed start to testing.
The FW42 did not run until the afternoon of the third day of testing last week and today marked the first time they covered more than 100 laps in a single day.“It feels like a proper day one for us really,” said Russell. “Great to get some laps in the car, just understand a bit of low-fuel, bit of high fuel, what the car’s doing. That gives us a great indication what we can do for the rest of the week.”
“It was really nice to finally push quite hard,” he added. “I think I had some very good runs on the C3 and C1 tyre.
“We have some work to do on the C4 and C5, but I think that is only normal. We’ve only run that set of tyres once, and we’ve got a good understanding of the issue.”
However with three days’ testing left the team has covered less than half the mileage of most of its rivals.
“It certainly hasn’t made up for last week because everybody else at this stage are fine-tuning the balance whereas we’re needing to understand the car,” Russell admitted.
“I feel like we’re in a good spot. The car isn’t in the perfect window right now but I feel like it’s definitely got potential. And we’ve still got three good days ahead of us to do that.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2019 F1 season
- Crying in the Melbourne car park at 2019 grand prix was my career low – Ocon
- McLaren Racing reports reduced £71 million loss in 2019
- Kvyat: Hockenheim podium last year was “my biggest achievement” so far
- How the FIA’s new encrypted fuel flow meter targets Ferrari’s suspected ‘aliasing’ trick
- “He smashed my office door”: 23 must-see moments from ‘Drive to Survive’ season two
stefano (@alfa145)
26th February 2019, 21:30
I wonder what background an F1 rookie has supporting statements like “I feel like we’re in a good spot. The car isn’t in the perfect window right now but I feel like it’s definitely got potential.” Potential compared to what? How can he possibly know anything about the others? I’m genuinely interested. I know he did F2 and lower, and he tested a Mercedes F1, but that was another spec, so really no comparing, I guess.
MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
26th February 2019, 21:42
Well, maybe having a feeling you are not yet going flat out to the limit and the setup still has some ‘normal’ niggles here and there while not being absolutely nowhere whatsoever laptimeswise is an indicator you might go for in this sort of scenario.
anon
26th February 2019, 22:01
@alfa145, Russell took part in two practise sessions for Force India in late 2017, and in 2018 he drove Force India’s car during the mid season test after the Spanish GP – those tests in a midfield car would probably be a useful reference point for Russell, even if it was from the previous year.
Asides from that, to some extent he has to make those sorts of comments in the press when you consider the rather wretched 2018 season that Williams had and the troubled development of this car – not just because it casts the team in a better light to the public, but also for the sake of boosting morale within the team given the rumours that it’s been pretty low in recent weeks.
Matthijs (@matthijs)
27th February 2019, 8:06
@alfa145 Fair question. I imagine that you feel the inbalance in the car when driving close to the limit, you can feel the car sliding or understeering, you can see when tyres don’t heat up or wear down uniformly, things like that. But it’s hard when you don’t have much to compare it to.
stefano (@alfa145)
27th February 2019, 11:42
@matthijs I stand by my point but yours are good arguments nevertheless