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2023 championship position: 7th, 28 points
Speedcafe’s 2024 championship prediction: 8th
There are positive signs emerging from Grove as James Vowles works to build Williams back up to its former glory.
Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant combined to deliver seventh in the constructors’ championship last year, an admiral position for the squad.
That was built largely off the back of Albon capitalising on opportunities as they presented themselves in a car that had a narrow sweet spot.
Typically, that was at lower downforce circuits where the highly efficient FW45 was at its best – add downforce, and the car tended to go backwards.
Sargeant had a difficult debut season but, in the latter stages, did find his feet a little more. He’s been retained for the coming campaign but needs to demonstrate far more this season if he’s to see a third in F1.
But what does ‘success’ look like in 2024 for Williams? Ther squad has now gone over a decade without a race win (who can forget Pastor Maldonado in Spain!?), the longest stretch in the organisation’s history.
There is no doubt that 2023 was better than 2022, which, at surface level, suggests there’s a solid baseline to build from.
Further, it seems the team understands why it performed as it did last season – Vowles told Speedcafe as much as part of the KTM Summer Grill.
A decision to optimise the car around low downforce meant it worked well at the faster circuits on the calendar.
However, it suffered when it added wing and high tyre degradation meant it also bled time over a race run.
That the team understands that is positive – there are others who were fast some weekends and slow others, and can’t really explain why.
So, for Williams, to move forward it simply needs to add downforce and make the car gentler on tyres. Simple. If only it were that easy.
The choice to optimise the car for the faster circuits is a logical one as there are enough of them to offer a chance to score a reasonable number of points – look at 2023.
It’s also pragmatic as adding downforce is not trivial, not to mention expensive, and would mean Williams would go head-to-head with the midfield pack rather than stealing points away at events where they have a point of difference.
There are diminishing returns in doing so, and realistically its battle is to maintain seventh, not secure fourth, on the constructors’ championship. That’s not a slight at the team, just a pragmatic view of where it is in its rebuild.
With that in mind, perhaps the best approach is to maintain a car that works well on low downforce circuits while working to resolve tyre degradation issues.
Doing that would see it able to at least match its performance last year, in theory, and perhaps inch its way forward as others, taking bigger design swings, get it wrong.
Of course, beyond this is the thorny question as to when the team needs to lift its eyes and target the midfield, though given Vowles’ stated focus on building the team long term, the short term is less of a priority so that can realistically wait another year or two, though the clock is always ticking.
So, for 2024, expect to see much of the same from Williams; a car that is optimised for a handful of events, where it performs well, but compromised at others.
