Vowles confident in Williams progress

Williams can mount a realistic challenge for seventh place in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship this season with the strengths of its 2023 car,  team principal James Vowles believes.

Alex Albon finished seventh in the Canadian Grand Prix to move Williams up to ninth place, one point behind Haas and just two adrift of Alfa Romeo in the constructors’ standings. Albon was using an upgraded car that is due to be available to Logan Sargeant in this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, and Vowles believes the developments mean Williams will be particularly strong at a number of European venues around the summer break.

“I think realistically yes (P7 is achievable),” Vowles told SpeedCity Broadcasting. “We have the package now -- we’ll do our best with it at the forthcoming races. There are going to be some tracks that definitely suit the teams (directly ahead) more than us. Perhaps over the next two you may see us drop back a little bit, but then you’re going to get a series of tracks where this car really starts to perform.

“What we’ve got to do is the same thing we did (in Canada) with Alex but not with Logan -- we’ve got to deliver and execute a perfect weekend, clean car, reliable car. With Logan, obviously as incredible as this is and I’m happy for everybody to a point, we also have a car that DNFd and in that sort of situation you can’t have happen in this tight fight for the odd point in the championship.”

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Vowles has been outspoken about the areas where Williams has been lagging behind rival teams in terms of infrastructure and processes, and while he says the team should be proud of the way it delivered on its recent upgrade, he wants it to act as motivation for further improvements.

“What it means is already various bits -- despite some of the obvious things lacking that I’ve been very vocal about -- the odd bits work well together to deliver what we have today. That’s great news. What it means is that once we do have the infrastructure in place and the machines in place and the systems in place, it will deliver more and more.

“It means the wind tunnel is delivering aerodynamic performance and it’s correlating to the car. These are great additions, but even in those areas there’s a tremendous amount more work to do to optimize it. I think what it more means for the team is you’ll see everyone’s shoulders almost having a weight off them.

“Now we have to be careful with that -- you can’t relax. This is where you’ve got to dig deep, actually deeper than before and get on with things, but even so it gives the team just reward for their work.”