How Williams Team Principal James Vowles assesses the starting position of his racing team ahead of the 2024 season and what goals he is sending his team into the races with
Williams finished seventh in the 2023 Formula 1 season and successfully prevailed against AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo and Haas. So will the next step follow in 2024, perhaps bringing teams like Aston Martin and Alpine within reach? This is “not realistic” for Williams team boss James Vowles,
His reasoning: “I know the true gap to [Aston Martin and Alpine] and I know our rate of development. What we want to change is still too far away to allow us to take this step next year.”
Especially as the points gap between the aforementioned racing teams and Williams was considerable: Williams finished the 2023 season in seventh place in the constructors’ championship with 28 points, while Aston Martin with 280 and Alpine with 120 points were well ahead.
But his team will at least get closer in 2024 and “be in a better position”, says Vowles. He is “confident” going into the new racing year. Postscript: “But I won’t do anything to jeopardize our long-term goal.” And that is to re-establish Williams among the top teams in the medium term
Williams will score points under its own steam in 2023
2023 was a first step on this path, and Williams has developed particularly well since the summer break, emphasizes Vowles. “With the exception of Suzuka, where we were definitely too slow, Singapore, where Perez knocked us out of the points, and Brazil, where we were involved in a crash at the start, we scored points in every race up to the final.”
He said he saw a “completely different Williams team” in this phase than at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023, “because we managed to improve our package so much that we were able to finish in the points under our own steam. Two points here, two there,” says Vowles.
Why Williams shifted development early on
And that was expressly due to the driving performance of Alexander Albon, who did “an incredible job” with the FW45, and that in a difficult situation: Williams had already shut down development on the 2023 car.
Vowles explains: “We wanted to focus on 2024 early enough. Even though there was a risk of being overtaken by Alpha Tauri.”
“I know I was asking a lot of my drivers and the race team. They had to defend seventh place with one arm behind them. They took it as a challenge and fought. But it’s not about seventh, eighth or ninth place today, it’s about the big step tomorrow. “
