Williams warned

Title hopefuls Williams have been warned they may have to wait until the second half of the season before they can expect to challenge Ferrari’s ominous early dominance.

Gerhard Berger, former motorsport boss of Williams’ engine partners BMW, believes the FW26 still needs more development before it can start matching Michael Schumacher’s car.

“I don’t think in the first half of the year it is going to be possible to close the gap to Ferrari because the gap was really big,” said ex-grand prix racer Berger who quit his role at BMW last season.