Williams has carried out a chassis swap between its driver𒁃s for 🎀this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

According to George Russell, the Briton is now using the chassis teammate Robert Kubica raced in for the first four rounds of the 2019 se🐲ason, while Kubica is in Russell’s Baku-spec chassis.

The p🌠lan always was to swap chassis but Russell’s drain-related incident during Azerbaijan Grand Prix practice prompted an early change due to the damage he picked up after running over the loose manhole cover in Baku FP1.

“I’m in Robert’s chassis this weeken💮d, there was a new chassis Robert w♊as getting, which was always the plan.

“But then because my chassis was damaged from Baku, 🌞I’ve now been allocated this chassis. He’s in my Baku chassis, I’m in his chassis from the start✤ of the year.”

The Williams duo once again propped up the timeshe🧸ets in Barcelona throughout Friday’s practice running, though Russell was encouraged by the reduced deficit to the rest of the field after introducing some “exciting” upgrades this weekend.

Kubica ended up j♑ust three tenths slower than Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo in FP1, while Russell set the team’s best laptime in FP2 tཧo finish eight tenths adrift of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez.

“We’re probably slightly cl🌞oser to the rest of the field compared to what we were expecting,” Russell said.

“Especially when we heard or read in the media that everyone was bringing brand new updates and it would be like a brand new car, s🌠o we we🐓re fairly happy with that.

“I think it’s normal for everybody to bring a big upgrade to 🎶Barcelona, we’re sort of taking the approach of testing things week in week out to try and get a clearer picture of our car and understanding because I don’t think anybody would bring us an update to get bring from the back of the field forward.

“But like I said the test we did today was very positive in giving us🌜 a good understanding.”

Kubica added: “FP1 feeling wasꦛ not too bad, 🐓we did our programme.

“Second free practice the feeling was not so great. We have to understand now the rౠeason. Generally still okay.

“We h♚ad for precautionary reasons have to stop for around🍸 30 minutes to change one part. So we were not able to complete our long run programme, but all okay.

“From performance point of view the gaps are big enough, I ✱think it’s not that we can find one second in the𝔉 balance of the car.”