Official Pre-Season Test preview

Formula One’s Official Pre-Season Test gets underway between 10-11th March, as Bahrain International Circuit hosts a final three days of track time before the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship gets underway the following week. Nicholas Latifi and Alex Albon will both return to the FW44 after a successful session in Barcelona, continuing to collect valuable data and further build upon their understanding of the new machinery.

The Williams Racing driving schedule is due to be:

Morning and afternoon: Alex Albon

Morning and afternoon: Nicholas Latifi

Morning: Nicholas Latifi

Afternoon: Alex Albon

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: The main objective of the test this week is to build on the learning from the track session in Barcelona and to start to increase the performance of the car. We got a useful preview of the FW44 in Barcelona and although the cars were only back in Grove for a few days before being transported to Bahrain, we were able to do quite a lot of work on them, which should help us to exploit the best performance this week.

Conditions in Bahrain will be more demanding than they were in Spain, with the hotter track temperatures affecting the tyre performance and the stronger wind gusts challenging the aero characteristics much harder. This will be an excellent opportunity to test the car in a different environment and to use the data we gather to predict how the car will perform throughout the season ahead.

We were reasonably happy with our work in Barcelona, but we are looking to do even better this week as we seek to push the performance of the FW44 forwards as well as ensuring that the car is fully race ready for the season ahead.

Nicholas Latifi: I’m super excited to get to Bahrain for testing. After sampling the FW44 in Barcelona last week, I’m curious to see it on a track that is going to have more representative conditions. It’ll be a good opportunity to see what we can do and build upon the progress and learning we currently have. The additional running will also be much more relevant for the team as we’re racing there a week later, so I’m really looking forward to it.

Alex Albon: After a strong few days in Barcelona, the focus now turns to the pre-season test in Bahrain. It's a very different track with incredibly different temperatures, so it will be interesting to see how the FW44 performs, and we'll have a lot to learn ahead of the first race. Our main goals will be to fine tune the set-up of the car and work on maximising performance; I'm looking forward to it!