Williams still short on spare parts in Bahrain

Williams is still short on spare parts and is set for a difficult weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix, according to Robert Kubica.

Delays with the new car meant Williams failed to make the start of pre-season testing, and the FW42 proved to be uncompetitive when it ran. Kubica complained of fatigued parts toward the end of the second test, and after being comfortably slowest at the season-opening race in Melbourne he admits things are not looking any better in Bahrain.

“Realistically we are facing not an easy weekend, again, knowing difficulties we had in Australia,” Kubica said. “It’s true that the Bahrain track is different configuration, different specification, but not from one week to the other will there be miracles. I think it will be a difficult one, but nevertheless it is still important to try and do our best with what we have.

“Coming to a new weekend it’s not an easy situation also from driver point of view because we will be limited with spare arts and everything. Looking what happened to me in Australia, on Friday in FP1 going onto the curb I got a damaged floor and we didn’t have bits to replace it, and it affected us probably all weekend.

“You have to have a safe approach, but still as I said we have to try and do my best, make sure I’m doing my best. What I learned in Australia … hopefully we’ll have a smoother weekend than I did have in Australia.

“I think everybody here and in the factory is trying to give us the best possible car to drive but the delays we have in Barcelona you will not fix it in one week. Unfortunately we are paying the bill of what happened one, two months ago.”

More Formula 1

Turkish Grand Prix to return to F1 calendar in 2027

Brown says Horner F1 return would be a positive, more A-B teams not so much

What the revised Formula 1 regulations are predicted to achieve in Miami

With Williams already over a second off the pace of the rest of the midfield, Kubica says having to use old parts in Bahrain will mean the car is not at its full potential.

“As I said the team is trying to get us I think the best car we can have to drive, but on the other hand I think in a perfect world you will have fresher parts starting a weekend, and having some spare parts, in a good state. Because you know it is already very difficult to drive -- we are lacking grip. If we are having the parts not at 100% we are limiting ourselves as well.”