F1 | Williams news: the display is now integrated into the steering wheel

The 2024 Williams season began with a totally new car, revised in many aspects compared to the past in order to give the drivers a car that is not only faster, but also more drivable. In fact, the team tried not only to add aerodynamic load, but also to modify the characteristics of the vehicle's dynamics, with the hope that the FW46 would guarantee greater driving simplicity.

However, there are also other aspects of the single-seater that have left room for a small revolution, starting with the steering wheel, which has been totally redesigned. Williams was the last team in the entire grid to still have the display anchored to the frame, separated from the steering wheel with the iconic “butterfly” design, in order to make the latter lighter and easier for drivers to handle, especially when cornering.

Starting from 2014, with the beginning of the new regulatory era of turbo hybrid engines, it was decided to increase the size of the display, in order to guarantee pilots the possibility of having a greater amount of information available, in particular on consumption and the temperature of the roofs. While most teams had decided to integrate the display inside the steering wheel itself, as happened before the introduction of the Power Units, other teams, such as Red Bull and Williams, had chosen to keep the two elements separate.

While the Milton Keynes team changed their minds after a short time by debuting a new steering wheel the following year, in 2015, on the contrary, Williams remained faithful to its philosophy until the end of last season, as for the engineers the design throttle guaranteed an advantage in terms of usability, suggesting that drivers would rarely see the indications on the display when cornering.

However, during the tests in Bahrain 2024, the Grove team presented itself with a totally redesigned steering wheel, which clearly required a long study and development work behind the scenes, in order to also guarantee the right driving comfort at who will then lower himself into the cockpit. The engineers who took care of the project essentially started from a blank sheet of paper, having to reorganize the order of the buttons, rotaries and selectors, as well as all the electronic parts under the carbon skin.

One of the first aspects that catches attention is that of the rather peculiar shapes. Clearly the steering wheel is open in the lower part, in order to reduce the weight in a direction also followed by other teams, but it is even more interesting to note the keel shape in the area where the selectors are present: also in this case it is a modification aimed at reducing mass and saving a few grams.

Logan Sargeant, Williams W46

Photo by: Erik Junius

To give it this characteristic shape, the engineers had to reduce the number of selectors in the lower part of the steering wheel, which went from five last year to four this season: the “mode” lever, with which the modes of use were managed, is in fact it was integrated into a lateral rotary and this made it possible to free up space in the lower area of ​​the steering wheel. Through the four selectors the driver can modify the parameters of use, for example switching from the “push” mode in qualifying to the “race” mode for the race, as well as adapt the sensors to the different type of tires fitted, as well as solving any problems and intervene on other aspects of the Power Unit through the use of the two multifunctions (MF-A, MF-B).

Although the number of buttons has also decreased, going from a total of 10 buttons compared to 12 in previous years, when redesigning the steering wheel the engineers made sure to increase the quantity of rotaries, i.e. those “wheels” with which a driver can change quickly parameters such as the differential, braking distribution or brake migration, which regulates the behavior of the brakes during release.

The different preferences of the two Williams drivers in the representation of data on the display at a software level

Photo by: Gianluca D'Alessandro

These interventions also required a partial redesign of the rear part of the steering wheel, as for the repositioning of the rapid selectors to change several parameters together from curve to curve, but also the arrangement of the clutch levers: it is no coincidence that, during the tests, the drivers also completed several starting tests from the end of the pit lane, in order to gain greater confidence with the system in addition to the work already carried out on the simulator.

Furthermore, Logan Sargeant revealed that he has revised the design of his lever, in particular the case in which the fingers are inserted, in order to find greater safety and a better feeling during the release phase, as in the past season on several occasions he was the author of slow starts.

The only aspect that has remained substantially unchanged compared to the past is the management software, i.e. what is reproduced on the display, which had already been partly modified last year with small targeted interventions. However, it should be noted that the two pilots have different preferences regarding how information is presented, an aspect already found in 2023 and reconfirmed this year.

With Williams' transition to this new configuration, the era of butterfly steering wheels and screens anchored directly to the chassis comes to an end. A passage which, albeit in its small way, represents part of the revolution implemented by the Grove team to continue its climb towards the noblest areas of the grid.