With 111 points, Williams, led by James Vowles, has positioned itself firmly in P5 in the constructors’ standings. The threat from the likes of Racing Bulls and Aston Martin continues to grow. With Williams lately finding points hard to come by, Red Bull’s sister team has reduced that gap to just 29 points.
The season has just three more Grands Prix remaining. Williams boss James Vowles remains upbeat about his team’s chances. However, the F1 Qatar GP has left Vowles with second thoughts about the FW47’s abilities and weaknesses.
In a recent Q&A on the Vowles Verdict, the Williams boss delivered a positive outlook on the last three race weekends. Despite Williams scoring only at the COTA Sprint, Vowles admitted that each track suited the FW47. He rued the crashes that kept the team from scoring points, yet remained positive about their prospects in the remaining races.
“You learn every single race weekend and that can be, for example, about how you’re running the car, where you’re in a different set-up regime to where you’ve been previously, what happens if it’s damp, what happens if it’s wet, what happens if the pressures are slightly higher. It does allow you to have a little bit more optimum understanding of the car is going forward because every learning creates a correlation opportunity,” Vowles said when asked about Williams’ learnings from the last three F1 races.
“Generally speaking though I’d say between Austin to Brazil, the car’s been pretty much in the right window, we’ve learnt what we need to about it, we just have walked away with no points other from accidents or perhaps not, just optimising the best way possible during the race. That said, what we’ve now got in front of us between Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi are three very different tracks to what we really had for the last few.”
Vowles predicts better days except for the F1 Qatar GP
Continuing to answer the question, Vowles gave his prediction for the final three races of the season. He expects the Las Vegas GP’s longer straights to work in their favour. However, the medium-speed corners at the F1 Qatar GP could leave the FW47’s weaknesses exposed. Vowles expects the advantage to return at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
“Vegas, you’ve got that really long straight. It rewards now the very low downforce set-up and that’s where I think we have a great opportunity with the FW47,” he said.
“Qatar is a completely different track. Again, sprint race, it’s one that’s physically hard on the drivers, especially if the temperatures are up. It’s one where you can run the kerbs in a different way and it’s got a lot of medium speed corners and a lot of combined. And again, that’s a circumstance where I think it won’t suit all the characteristics of that Williams.”
Setting expectations, he added, “We just need to make sure they’re picking up points. But actually that’s one of our best learning opportunities because it really exposes a weakness of ours. We can try different set-up directions in order to be able to see how the car responds to it.
“And then finally, Abu Dhabi. Now Abu Dhabi, the car was good last year. I think it will be good this year as well. But again, it’s a different set-up to both downforce and otherwise to both Vegas and Qatar.”
The Williams team principal seems confident of holding on to the fifth position. The learnings on the set-ups from the last three races will surely come in handy. However, Carlos Sainz and teammate Alex Albon will need another element to achieve the task — luck. The frequent crashes and car issues have robbed them of some crucial point-scoring opportunities.
