The Season Hasn’t Started, But One F1 Team Is Already Having Major Struggles

With new regulations hitting Formula 1 this season, all teams are on an even footing to start the year.

Well, except one, who just announced a major setback before ever turning a single lap.

On Friday, Williams announced that they will not be participating in shakedown testing next week in Barcelona. 

This three-day session is meant to give teams a little extra track time due to the new rules before the standard testing sessions in Bahrain next month.

"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 statement reads.

Williams said they will conduct VTT, or Virtual Track Testing, instead.

Uh-oh. This is not what you want to hear if you're a Williams fan.

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It might ultimately be nothing, but considering Williams was a huge surprise last season and finished a strong P5, seeing them back behind the eight-ball is disappointing. Especially because they won't be gathering any data in Barcelona like the rest of the field will.

This makes the test sessions in Bahrain even more important as they will need to maximize every second on track and try their best to avoid crashes or technical issues that will keep them in the garage.

With new cars and new engines, technical issues happen, so Williams will want their cars as buttoned up as possible. And they'll be hoping their engine supplier, Mercedes, makes their new power unit bulletproof. An engine failure that blows half a day of running is the last thing they'll want.

Hopefully, this is a blip for Williams. But when the car hasn't even been unveiled yet, it's way too early for blips of any kind.

Williams is scheduled to officially unveil the FW48, or, more specifically, its livery, on February 3.