Former top engineer at Williams, Rob Smedley, has been signed up by Liberty Media.

Towards the end of Williams' abysmal 2018 season, Smedley announced that he is leaving.

Now, it has emerged that he is taking up an official F1 role as technical consultant. It is believed Smedley was headhunted by Ross Brawn, his former Ferrari colleague and now F1 sporting boss.

"In conversations with Ross, we were both of the opinion that there's this really rich seam of technical content, of data, of the way that teams operate, that actually never gets told," Smedley said.

At his former team, things are going less well. Claire Williams has announced that the Grove based team is not ready to start testing its 2019 car on Monday.

"It's clearly not ideal, but equally it's not the end of the world," she said.

However, there are concerns about whether Williams can mount a comeback in 2019, having finished last season dead last of the ten teams.

"If you take a close look at the FW42, one wonders where are the big ideas that can take Williams back at least into the midfield," said Auto Motor und Sport correspondent Tobias Gruner.