{"id":433250,"date":"2026-01-23T23:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433250\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T23:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:42:08","slug":"williams-to-miss-f1-pre-season-test-with-new-car-not-ready-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433250\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams to miss F1 pre-season test with new car not ready in time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Williams will not take part in Formula 1’s pre-season test in Barcelona next week, the team \u200dsaid on Friday after failing to get their new car ready in time.<\/p>\n

The test at the Circuit de Catalunya will take place behind closed \u200bdoors, without media access, and was due to be the first time all teams – now up to 11 with debutants Cadillac – had their 2026 cars on the \u200ctrack together.<\/p>\n

The 2026 season marks the start of a new engine era with an \u200coverhaul of the technical regulations.<\/p>\n

“Atlassian Williams F1 Team has taken the decision not to participate in next week’s shakedown test in Barcelona following delays in the FW48 programme as we continue to push for maximum car performance,” the team said in \u2060a statement.<\/p>\n

“The team will instead conduct a series of tests including a VTT (Virtual Test Track) \u200cprogramme next week with the 2026 car to prepare for the first official test \u200bin Bahrain and the first race of the season in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

“We are looking forward to getting on track in the coming weeks and want to thank all our fans for your continued support \u2013 there is a lot to look forward to together in 2026.”<\/p>\n

Williams, who have Spaniard Carlos Sainz<\/a> and Thai Alex \u200cAlbon<\/a> as drivers, did not specify the exact cause of the delay but some media reports mentioned the FIA crash tests required to participate in testing.<\/p>\n

Alpine driver Franco Colapinto<\/a>, who has a long-term contract with Williams after starting his F1 career \u2060there, felt it was a setback for the team with limited track time available.<\/p>\n

“If you miss Barcelona, the first three days of Bahrain will be just trying to get the car to work and understand,” said the Argentine at the launch of his team’s new car in Barcelona. “It’s very important to get all the mileage you can and get all the knowledge possible.”<\/p>\n

Alpine, Ferrari, Cadillac and Audi have all run their new cars for limited mileage filming days and apart from Williams all the teams plan to be in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Alpine technical director David Sanchez said it was important to maximise the time \u2060available with so much change.<\/p>\n

“You want the car to be on \u200ctrack as early as possible so you find the problems to fix and you give yourself time to fix it,” he said.<\/p>\n

Williams, who also missed two days of the opening pre-season test ahead of the 2019 campaign, finished in fifth place in the team standings last season — their \u2060best since 2017.<\/p>\n

The season begins with the Australian Grand Prix in \u200bMelbourne on March 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Williams will not take part in Formula 1’s pre-season test in Barcelona next week, the team \u200dsaid on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-433250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}