Williams team boss James Vowles says the weight issue currently impacting the performance of the team’s car was significantly mitigated in Monaco by the track’s characteristics, helping Alex Albon deliver to the outfit its first points of the season.
Williams has struggled to extract pace from its FW46 this season, particularly in Saturday’s qualifying sessions.
The team had aimed to create a more versatile car for 2024, one that could perform well on a wider range of circuits compared to its processor. However, so far, results suggest that further development is required.
But last weekend, Monaco’s tight and twisty layout proved to be a bit of a leveller for the Grove-based outfit. The emphasis on low-speed handling and car control played to Williams' strengths to a certain extent.
This is evidenced by Albon's successful run to Q3, securing an impressive P8 on the race’s grid, a position he was able to maintain in Sunday’s processional event, claiming two championship points in the process.
"I've been very open about the fact that car is overweight,” Vowles explained in his Williams post-race debrief video.
“The effect of weight is quite different at some tracks, you can even be up to four tenths per ten kilos, but in Monaco you're more around two tenths per ten kilos, so half of what you see normally.
"So when a car's overweight, that effect, that penalty gets almost halved there, and that means we had the ability to move forward relative to the field.
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"We've been working incredibly hard across the last 12 months, making a car that has a good balance across all circuits, balanced in low, medium and high-speed corners, and a good foundation that the drivers can exploit and trust.
"All of those is what you need to be quick in Monaco, you have to be able to trust the car, know that you can push it to the limit, understand what the balance is going to do predict, what the car's going to do that rewards you."
Vowles made clear that “one result doesn't define a turnaround”, but the Briton acknowledges the positive impact on team spirit and foresees “more performance coming” with impending upgrades.
"There are just some elements of the car including the overweight where we haven't quite delivered as we need to, but I strongly believe in momentum,” the Williams boss explained.
“I believe that you need a result like this to make sure everyone's heads are lifted, believe in the journey that we're on.
"There's plenty of reason to be optimistic,” he added. “We have huge amounts of performance to come and it's a long season.
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“We're only just at the beginning of it, what we need to do now is build on what we have to make sure we understand at the factory what we did wrong in the circumstance.
"We didn't get everything right this weekend nor did we across the first few races, but we understand what we can improve going forward.
“We've got Canada where there's more performance coming again and across the next six rounds there's plenty to look forward to so keep that positive momentum going make sure we're delivering performance of the track.
"I think one result doesn't define a turnaround, for me one result though does give you a good set of foundations to work from I think you're going to see us go up and down across the next few races as we add performance to the car but definitely what we have is a good starting point.”
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