Williams technical director Sam Michael says the two-week delay to the start of the Formula One season caused by the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix has made a “massive difference” to teams’ development programmes.
The Gulf state had been scheduled to host the season-opener on March 13 but was forced to cancel because of anti-government protests. The first race will now be held in Melbourne on March 27.
A final pre-season test in Bahrain, scheduled to take place a week before the opening race, has also been cancelled with teams instead heading back to Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya between March 8-11.
“I think it just gives you a lot more time to refine things and have a nicer package,” Michael said.
“Obviously, you’d always make the first race and be there and do the best with what you’ve got but you are always a little bit ragged at the first race…having two weeks extra makes a massive difference in Formula One because it’s such a long time.
“It’s quite surreal at the moment actually, because everything in Formula One is geared around deadlines and not having deadlines that shift. Then to suddenly have one that shifts by two weeks is massive.”
Resource
Michael reckons the deadlines in F1 are such that the two weeks the teams have been handed is the equivalent of an extra three months to create a new road car or six months to finish off building a jet.
“Two weeks is an eternity in Formula One,” he said.
“You use a couple of days to tidy up the things you were tight on and then you are straight into development, trying to bring things forward that you’ve now got more resource to do.”
Williams now have more time, for example, to manufacture specific cooling parts needed for Bahrain which will still be used at the third round of the season in Malaysia, where temperatures are also high.
“We have a first race upgrade package which will be on the car in its entirety for the Barcelona test,” said Michael.
“Between Barcelona and Melbourne we will also change the car again, because we have found things in the wind tunnel and stuff that we’d like to change.”
