Williams are enduring what could become the worst period in their illustrious history, with a new car that is simply not good enough for their two young drivers who were never on the pace during the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The arrival of Paddy Lowe at Williams a couple of years ago heralded a new era for the longtime under-performing outfit. Head-hunted from Mercedes Lowe was going to raise the technical game at Grove.

Afterall they have Mercedes power units that have dominated the sport, which by their own admission is the same spec and power that the works team have, thus the 2 or 2.5 seconds deficit to the pacesetters must be down to severely flawed design.

For this they hired highly rated ex-Ferrari designer Dirk de Beer, his arrival invariably triggered great expectations for this year’s FW41, the first fruit of the work of the Lowe led tech team. But what they have delivered for their drivers is the slowest car on the 2018 grid.