Can the Williams Formula 1 team maintain its seventh place in the world championship with eight races to go? If, as team boss James Vowles suggests, the FW45 is no longer a “one-trick pony” and can finish in the points on tracks that are not dominated by long straights, then that is certainly possible.
Williams currently has 21 points, ahead of Haas with 11, Alfa Romeo with 10 and AlphaTauri with 3 points. A random wet race or one with a lot of retirements could change things, but for now the Grove-based team are in a strong position, even with Alex Albon doing all the work and Logan Sargeant failing to score so far.
Significantly, the team made good use of the high-speed tracks that the car was always intended to suit. Albon achieved solid seventh places in Montreal and Monza, eighth at Silverstone and tenth at the season opener in Bahrain. However, it was Albon’s eighth place at Zandvoort that showed that the car can be a threat to the points on any circuit.
He was quick from the start of the weekend, finishing fifth, third and sixth in the three practice sessions and then finishing fourth in qualifying.
The race was more of a disappointment for the team. It was a bad decision to run on slicks in the initial rain, which Albon somewhat made up for with a long first stint. He was on his way to sixth place when he was called up to Inters a lap late as it ended up raining again. Nevertheless, eighth place was a decent result.
Vowles: Not disappointed despite strategy errors
“As always with these things, you tend to get greedy,” says Vowles. “If you had asked me before the start if you wanted eighth place? Yes, definitely, I’ll take it, thank you very much.”
“But in reality we were sixth in the race because we were able to pull away from Alpine. And without the rain that started and also under our control at the last stop, we could have made a better decision, sixth place was then possible for us. “
“And as a result, you walk away disappointed. But when I take a step back, I and we as a team look for a positive improvement, a positive direction, and we have that.”
Are 21 points enough for P7 in the Team World Championship?
Vowles is sure that Zandvoort was a sign that the car can be competitive on different tracks: “We now have tracks that show we are not just a one-trick pony, a number of tracks where we continue to develop.”
“That won’t be the case in all races this year. I know that. But it’s enough that we’ve worked our way up to seventh place in the championship, which is undisputed. Now we’ll build on that and look forward. “
The most important thing for Williams is that the team was able to deliver on the supposedly favorable tracks, such as Monza. In other words: you took your chances and implemented them.
“The fight for seventh place in the championship is a question of points,” says Vowles. “And we’re not stupid, it only takes one race to completely undo all the hard work we’ve put in.”
“In Zandvoort it was about making sure that we can also score in the points on other tracks, especially with high downforce. In Monza it was about whether we could handle the expectations that weigh on our shoulders “We should score points here with the car we have and whether we can do that.”
“I think the reward for seventh place is where the car could be in the best case scenario. And as you’ve seen, I would even argue that the race car was a little bit away from that, but we’re happy with what it was we could have achieved.”
Was Zandvoort only dependent on the wind?
Performance boss Dave Robson remains cautious about the car’s prospects on a variety of circuits but admits the weekend at Zandvoort was unexpectedly strong.
“I still think we’re going to see a natural ebb and flow, partly because we go up and down and partly because everyone else tends to go up and down a little bit too,” he says.
“I think Zandvoort was a little surprising. But there were some signs from last year when we were really bad on Friday and Saturday. And when the wind changed on Sunday, we were actually quite good last year.”
“And then we had the preferred wind conditions all last weekend. So I think the track doesn’t naturally suit the car. But I think the conditions were good that day or that weekend. I think we “We’re going to see a little bit more of it, ups and downs.”
Robson suspects that the team did so well in qualifying at Zandvoort because they simply made the right decisions: “Maybe the mixed conditions helped us on Saturday. I think Saturday was a bit like qualifying at Spa with George [Russell] a few years ago where we did almost everything right, which is not often the case in these mixed conditions.”
“It’s very easy to make mistakes, as we showed the next day. But on Saturday we did everything right with both cars and the car ran pretty well.”
What Williams is still missing for the big breakthrough
The challenge for Williams heading into 2024 and the FW46 is to further increase downforce without losing the straight-line efficiency that has been the trump card in recent years.
“I think it’s still possible,” says Robson. “That’s the kind of decision we have to make every day in the wind tunnel, when you get something that delivers more downforce or delivers the downforce in a way that you hope will be more useful for the drivers, but it increases air resistance. It’s hard to say.”
“Not least because we know from five or six years ago that it’s extremely difficult to get rid of the extra air resistance once it gets stuck in the car. So I think it’s possible.”
“It’s a good sign that we [in Monza] are still OK. I think Zandvoort is still a bit special and I’m sure we would still have difficulties with this car in Barcelona. There is still a lack of downforce in the upper area. But yes, overall it is getting better. It becomes more usable and, above all, maintains efficiency.”Full season finale still offers many opportunitiesThe final eight races of 2023 include three sprint races, two street circuit races, tire testing on Friday in Japan and Mexico and of course the possibility of rain in places like Suzuka, Austin and Interlagos.
In other words, there will be a lot going on, and a team like Williams has a chance to score well if they do everything right on a given weekend.
“It creates some opportunities,” says Robson. “At the same time, it also takes away our ability to do half-decent testing. But yes, you could argue that it introduces a little more noise into the system for everyone and therefore creates new opportunities.”
“But I think, to be honest, it’s quite nice to have a quiet Friday and actually do some work. Because there’s been a lot of rain lately. So even when we had a normal event, it was interrupted a lot. It So it’s difficult.”
Could Singapore now also become a Williams track?
The Singapore GP next weekend should be an interesting test for Williams. The elimination of four tight corners and the creation of a longer straight won’t hurt, nor will the lack of wind, but it’s still a high-downforce track.
“On paper, Singapore probably shouldn’t be great,” says Robson. “But some changes to the track could help. Plus it’s generally quite calm and protected from the wind, which could also help. So I think we should have a sensible mix on all the remaining tracks and we just have to implement everything well and get something out of it.”
And one thing is clear – the team will have to do this without new parts on the FW45, because the focus is on the future: “The car we have, that’s it,” says Vowles. “Unlike Haas, who in my opinion are a tough opponent, a tough fight, we have nothing left to offer for the rest of the year.”
“So we have to try to get the points that will be available to us when they will be available to us. The main focus – not just now, but for some time now – is on the 24 car, and part of that The focus is also on the 25 and 26 cars.”
“At the moment we are in a bitter fight for places 10, 9, 8 and 7. I want the team, the squad and myself to fight for the places up there. And you can’t achieve that by “Constantly developing what you have at the moment. That’s only possible if you think about the future, and that comes with costs, maybe even going backwards for a year in order to then move forward again in the future.”