F1 | Albon ninth: “It’s a hint of what Williams can do”

Although the Monaco race did not offer particular emotions in terms of the action on the track on Sunday, this does not mean that it was not significant for several drivers. Charles Leclerc finally broke the spell of the Principality, Oscar Piastri achieved his first podium of the season, while Alex Albon gave Williams their first points of the 2024 championship.

In fact, until the Monaco stage, Grove’s team was the only one, together with Sauber, still at zero in the standings, but such a particular event, which partially hid the limitations of Grove’s car, allowed the situation to be reversed, thus hitting the first top ten of the year.

A few weeks ago, Williams admitted that the FW46 is still overweight not only compared to the minimum weight imposed by the FIA, but also compared to last year’s car, an aspect which has so far cost the team up to four tenths of a second . However, on the Monegasque track the weight factor has a less marked relevance than in other events, so some qualities of the car emerged more clearly, in particular the aspects on which the engineers worked during the winter.

Last season, the Williams stood out above all for its excellent characteristics in terms of top speed, but also for a certain effectiveness in those high-speed corners where the accelerator could be kept wide open. Silverstone was an excellent example of what the potential of a concrete single-seater could be at high speeds, not just on the straights, so much so that another good performance came with a top ten finish.

The work last winter went in the opposite direction, i.e. making the FW46 more effective in slow sections, as well as improving its behavior and predictability by modifying the driving dynamics, a theme on which James Vowles himself had paid particular attention during the presentation of the car. The goal was to make the new single-seater “global”, finding more consistent performance on a wide variety of tracks and not just the fastest ones.

However, the delay accumulated in the winter, as well as the weight issue, which is estimated to be more than ten kilos based on what the Team Principal himself mentioned, have hidden the progress. Williams has already started the journey in Imola to get closer to the minimum mass imposed by the FIA, but Monaco offered some signals on what the car’s potential could be: “Monaco is the least penalizing track of the year in terms of weight, so it makes the fairest game for us too,” said Alex Albon.

Alex Albon, Williams FW46

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

“The DNA of the basic car has also changed a lot compared to last year and if you think about the areas we tried to focus on, they were tight, low-speed corners, they are exactly those of this track. If this is the performance we can put on track minus the weight aspect, then that’s encouraging. It’s kind of a clue to what can happen in the rest of the season.”

“We have some work to do to try to eliminate this aspect of the weight, but we know how much it costs us and every time we compare where we are with where we could have been. But it’s just a result that we could have achieved, so we have to fix some parts and try not to be overweight, because I think we could do performances like this a little more often.”

However, this does not mean that all problems are solved. Beyond the program to reduce weight, on Friday some design limitations still emerged in terms of precision of the front in the slower sections, not only due to understeer, but also because in corners with a lot of camber, such as the five, the car tended to lift one of the two tires due to an overly rigid set-up. Over the course of the rest of the weekend, the technicians managed to make some steps forward which, even if they did not allow them to completely resolve the issue, allowed the Anglo-Thai driver to circumvent the problems.

Alex Albon, Williams FW46

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Furthermore, Williams also presented itself with a new rear wing which allowed for further improvements in performance, although only Albon was able to exploit it due to the lack of spare parts, so much so that Logan Sargeant continued to exploit old elements.

Although it was a race without great emotions, given what happened on the first lap which effectively froze the race in terms of positions allowing everyone to carry out the mandatory tire change, the important thing was to realize this potential and achieve an excellent ninth place: “It would have been better to have a more exciting race to get our first points, but that’s okay. They are important points for the team, it means a lot for us, you never like being left with zero points, it also helps the team’s morale. So now that we have achieved this result, we can use it as a springboard for the rest of the season.”