Williams are on the verge of an outright mutiny against their under-performing technical director, Paddy Lowe, as problems with building their 2019 car threaten to deprive the team of crucial winter testing time for a third straight day.

Even by the British team’s dismal recent standards, events of the past 48 hours have been beyond parody. At a time when Williams expected to be fine-tuning their machine ahead of next month’s opening grand prix in Melbourne, engineers have instead been kicking their heels at a hotel near the Circuit de Catalunya, with the car still stuck at their Oxfordshire headquarters.

With the car not due to arrive here in Barcelona until the early hours of Wednesday morning, Williams staff were working through the night just to ensure that it could be ready for the afternoon session. After the cancellation of last week’s planned shakedown of the Williams FW42, as well as the loss of two-and-a-half days of testing, patience with Lowe, the team’s beleaguered technical chief, is at breaking point.

Lowe, who presided over a nightmarish 2018 campaign in which Williams finished bottom of the constructors’ standings, has now failed even to deliver a car to the start line on time. His fall from grace has mirrored Williams’ own: just over two years ago, Lowe was still Mercedes’ top engineering guru, a central figure in the success of Lewis Hamilton, but he has since become the fall guy in the decline of one of British motorsport’s greatest companies.