Alex Albon says Williams is hoping to emulate next season what Aston Martin achieved this year, thanks to its early start on the design and development of its 2024 car.
Aston hit the ground running in Bahrain last March and enjoyed a run of five podiums in six races with its AMR23, a car that was put on its rails early in the previous year, an approach that accounted for a big part of the team’s significant step forward.
Williams has followed a similar path this season, with a well-planned development programme that has provided the Grove-based outfit with a bigger lead time to conceive its 2024 FW46 contender.
“The upgrade package that we had on the car for Canada was already, by February, being designed and in some parts being made,” Albon said in an interview with RacingNews365.
“We didn’t have many upgrades coming this year. In fact, Canada was really our last major one. So when you do it like that, it frees up more time to focus on next year’s car.”
While upgrades were few and far between in the first half of the season they were efficient, as Williams’ current P7 position in F1’s Constructors’ standings indicates.
Albon therefore hopes that less will turn out to be more for his team next season, and that it’s approach will eventually end up paying handsome dividends down the road.
“It shows the ambition of the team. It shows where we think we need to improve, and that just doing upgrades through the year is not really going to get us to that point,” explained the Anglo-Thai racer.
“Aston Martin is a great example of designating time and focusing on giving yourself a bit more of a buffer to improve the car. You need to think more long-term.
“We don’t want to be finishing eighth in the Constructors’, we want to be finishing fifth or fourth and that takes a big leap forward,” explains Albon.
“I don’t think McLaren did much to their car from pre-Silverstone, then they’ve just come in and hit the ground running.
“It seems like the top teams are still doing micro-updates, but the midfield teams are just putting in these big ones.
“A lot of that is due to the cost cap, but also for the midfield teams it’s more efficient to do it that way.”
Albon says that he’s been actively taking part in the development of Williams’ 2024 car and has been particularly focused on ironing out some of the balance characteristics that have been embedded in the team’s productions these past years as part of its DNA, even despite the sport’s big refgulation overhaul in 2022.
“I’ve [been] working on next year’s car since April,” he confirmed.
“This largely consists of simulator work, to try to mitigate some of these constant balance issues we’ve been having for the last four or five years. That’s been a big focus for next year.
"It's car DNA. I think every team has it,” added Albon.
“Speaking about it to Lando [Norris] and hearing how they [McLaren] felt their car in 2021 to 22, that's the case for most teams," he says.
"The way that teams are organised, the culture, the philosophies, they're just ingrained. It's amazing how the regulations can change so much.
"I can only compare to Nicholas [Latifi's] comments. He went from the 2021 cars to 2022 cars, and he said 'the car feels exactly the same' - same limitations, same positives, same weaknesses, but same strengths.
"The world of F1 is quite unique in that way, and that's why it's also so hard to change it. Because it can be so ingrained that, to get the change, you can't leave any stone unturned. You have to explore every avenue."
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