Reports in the Barcelona paddock claim that Williams chief designer Ed Wood has left the Grove outfit.

Wood joined Williams from Prodrive in 2006, where he had also served as chief designer, having previously spent spells at Ferrari as an R&D engineer and Renault where he was a senior development engineer.

If the rumours are true, Woods departure would mark the first serious personnel change since Paddy Lowe joined the team at the beginning of 2016.

It's understood that the Grove outfit is understandably unhappy with Wood's latest creation, which finally opened its points account at the recent Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The news comes just weeks after Tim Goss was dropped by McLaren as its chief technical officer.

Having previously worked alongside Lowe at McLaren, this has led to speculation that the pair could now reunite at Grove.

With last week's news that Jorg Zander has left Sauber, Wood's departure marks the third such move in as many weeks.

The team subsequently issued a statement confirming Wood's departure for "personal reasons".

It read:

"We can confirm that Ed Wood has decided to leave Williams for personal reasons.

As Chief Designer, Ed has been instrumental in many successes during his time with the team, including the FW36 and FW37 cars which secured third place in the constructors' championship in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

The team would like to express its gratitude to Ed for his hard work over the past 12 years; his experience, skill and passion for engineering has been a huge asset to Williams."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Barcelona, here.