Williams endured another difficult practice day at Barcelona

F1 Grand Prix, GP Spain, Circuit de Catalunya

Williams struggled for pace at last year's Spanish Grand Prix, and the Groved-based outfit appears to suffer from difficutlies at the challenging Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Williams had a tough Spanish Grand Prix last year, struggling many with tyre management in the 66-lap race.

With the team having been eager to make its car more of an all-rounder, the British outfit had hoped ahead of the weekend that it would display a stronger performance this time out. The early signs suggest slight improvements, but the Grove-based squad still finds itself at the bottom end of the field.

Commenting on Williams' opening day at Barcelona, Racing Director Sven Smeets added: "Last year we struggled at this track, especially when the track temperature went up.

"Today we learned that the FW46 is better balanced and a good step forward from last year, but that we still have to solve some issues we encountered in both Free Practice sessions to find performance for Qualifying and the race.

"We will be working hard tonight to go through all the data and try to find some solutions to help the drivers. Sunday seems still to be a cooler day which could help us to find performance," he noted.

Alex Albon was delighted that Williams appears to be in an improved form compared to last year, but he admitted that the British outfit encountered issues that it was unable to sort out on Friday.

"FP1 was pretty good. We haven't gone well in Barcelona historically, but we've made some good steps forward compared to last year.

"Going into FP2, we made a couple of changes to combat issues from FP1, but as the track gripped up, the same issues continued.

" We'll revisit overnight and see what we can do to address them. It's tough to be in P19 and P20, so I'm hoping that the track cools and the wind dies down to help us find a bit more pace," noted Albon.

His team-mate Logan Sargeant was not fully happy with his day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but he suggested that Williams might have achieved improvements in terms of race pace compared to its showing a year ago.

"It’s been a bit of a tricky day. This track has always been difficult for us and it’s proving to be so this weekend.

"There’s been positive flashes today like our long run pace which doesn’t look as bad as what it did last year. We had a bit of a compromised run plan on low fuel.

"There are still things to be optimistic about, but we have some work to do to find some time for tomorrow. We need to get the tyre working better on low fuel. From a balance point of view, we’re not too far away. We’ll do some digging tonight," concluded Sargeant.