Williams make changes to FW42 to ensure legality
- Farhan Khurram
- Mar 9, 2019
- 2 min read
It is being reported that Williams will now make changes to both the suspension as well as the side mirrors, in order to ensure the legality of the car, which will be raced by Robert Kubica and George Russell at the season-opening race at Melbourne.
Williams revealed its FW42 on February 15th with a new title sponsor, RoKIT onboard. The car raised many eyebrows among F1 experts and the FIA officials, who frowned upon the fact that the FW42 was illegal in some aspects.
Although, Williams tested the car with the same configurations during the winter testing, it is now being reported by Motorsport, that the 2019 contender will undergo some changes to ensure the legality, in time for the Australian Grand Prix.
All of this turmoil has unravelled at a time when the Chief Technical Officer of Williams, Paddy Lowe has apparently left the team, by taking a "leave of absence" for "personal reasons", after a poor start to the 2019 campaign.
As per the rulebook, only 6 elements on the suspension are permitted. Those 6 elements include 4 wishbones, 1 pushrod and 1 steering arm. Williams had added a 7th element to the suspension, that ran down the the edges of the lower wishbone. It is expected of the team to remove that additional 7th element before Australia.
Williams will also be pushed to alter the design of the side mirrors, which were previously curved.
Williams has had quite an unfortunate and uneventful beginning to the 2019 F1 season. The team was forced to miss the first 2 days of the pre-season testing in Barcelona, and as a result of that, it wasn't able to amass as much mileage as it was necessary for thorough testing of the car.
To further add to the woes, the car was considerably slow, as both George Russell and Robert Kubica sat at the bottom of the time sheets throughout the testing bar the first 2 days.
Both Kubica and the 2018 Formula 2 champion sounded critical of the FW42, with the Polish driver claiming that he is just 20% ready for the race in Melbourne, and that he hasn't "done longer than 15 laps long run" during the testing.
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