Williams ends spare parts shortage

Williams appears to have solved its shortage of spare parts.

Earlier, amid the team’s awful start to the 2019 season, the performance problem was compounded by a shortage of spare parts at the tests and races.

But Baku has shown that the problem is now solved.

Team mechanics built a whole new car for George Russell after the manhole incident on Friday, and Williams has confirmed that Robert Kubica’s car will be repaired for the race after his qualifying crash.

"It started with not getting our chassis to testing, and we’ve had to really play catch up off the back of that," said team boss Claire Williams.

"But we are now in a position where we have all our race quantities, and we have the quality on those race quantities that we needed," she added.

Not just that, Williams said the team is now moving on to introducing car upgrades that have "literally been sitting on a shelf as we’ve cleared the backlog out of manufacturing".

"So there is some light at the end of the tunnel," Claire said.

Helping with that race out of the tunnel is Patrick Head, the earlier-retired team co-founder and technical boss.

"Obviously that’s a great thing for us," said Williams.

"He’s acting as a guide for our team of engineers at the moment, just making sure they’re doing everything that they should be doing."