F1 | Williams ninth with just one pit stop, but differently than Ferrari

Not just Ferrari. The Monza Grand Prix was largely decided by graining and strategy management, with the Prancing Horse building its home race triumph on these two aspects, but the Maranello team wasn’t the only one to make that tactic work.

In the top ten, in fact, there are two other teams that managed to get points with just one stop, namely Williams and Haas. The interesting thing, however, is that they followed the same tactic but in a completely different way from Ferrari, which showed great decision-making flexibility in the race by changing the plan depending on the race situation, while Williams and Haas went their own way from the lights out to the checkered flag, remaining faithful to their choices.

The Grove team was extremely optimistic on the eve of the Grand Prix, especially because they knew that the Monza track, like last year, could suit certain characteristics of the FW46. Furthermore, the indications obtained from the package brought to Zandvoort, which allowed for steps forward in terms of both aerodynamics and weight reduction, have instilled great confidence in the team, so much so that James Vowles is already looking ahead to the next event in Baku, where he believes that the FW46 can once again score points.

However, before we let our minds wander to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in ten days’ time, it is interesting to note how the British team made the one-pit strategy work, beating teams that, according to Alex Albon, had a potentially better pace such as Aston Martin.

“We didn’t have the pace and we never had the front left in the right window the whole race. We had to ride at a slow pace to avoid graining. I had to manage the front left the whole race. I’m very happy to get ninth position,” said Albon after the race.

“I felt like we didn’t have the pace to do it, but we did it with the strategy, so I’m very happy. With the two-stop strategy we wouldn’t have done it because Alonso was a bit quicker than us. With the hard tyres he was quicker than me. So the team did a great job. We executed the race perfectly,” added the Anglo-Thai driver.

Looking at the progress of the race, in the first part of the race the Williams driver actually had to deal with a threatening Alonso behind him for the entire first stint, often in the DRS zone. Aston Martin had already planned a two-stop race from the start, so much so that it had “run in” the two sets of hard tyres already in free practice, but the chronic difficulties in keeping the tyres alive, especially when the track was in its worst conditions at the start of the race, pushed the Silverstone team in that direction, stopping after twelve laps.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20, Alex Albon, Williams FW46, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

In contrast, Williams stuck to their guns: “The decision to go for a single stop was made in the morning, during a meeting. We looked at our strengths and weaknesses and realised that a single stop was the best solution, but to make it work we had to make some compromises, partly in the setup, partly in how the drivers have to manage the tyre,” Vowles explained.

In fact, looking at the times, we can see how, even though Albon returned about six seconds behind Alonso after his only stop, he actually returned to the track in an ideal window: both ahead of Pierre Gasly, demonstrating the excellent timing chosen by the team, and in clean air, thus being able to make a linear and unforced introduction of the tyres, a fundamental aspect for managing graining during the stint.

Clearly the comparison with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari does not give a complete reading of the race, but it is interesting because it confirms Williams’ conservative approach in the initial part of the second stint, but also how effective Ferrari was subsequently in converting a two-stop strategy, i.e. Plan C, into a one-stop tactic once it understood how to react to Lando Norris’ second pit stop.

Albon vs Leclerc pace comparison in the second stint of the 2024 Italian GP

Photo by: Gianluca D’Alessandro

If you look at the times, you can see how in the first phase of the second stint Albon had a pace that was at times even a second and a half slower than Leclerc, suffering the most difficult phase between the 33rd and 41st laps. That drop in the stint was in fact due not only to the overtaking suffered by Kevin Magnussen’s Haas with his same strategy, but also by those drivers of the top teams who, like George Russell and Sergio Perez, had to stop again for a second stop. That was the most complex phase because, ending up in dirty air, the risk of suffering from graining was quite significant.

But it is precisely at the end that you see the fruits of Albon’s work during the race, when you notice a clear negative degradation. Basically, in fact, this race was not played on the degradation of the tire, but on the pure management of the graining, so much so that the times of many drivers who focused on a one-stopper remained very competitive even in the final part of the race. With the Williams driver this is perfectly evident: from the enormous initial gap that in certain laps exceeded a second and a half, towards the end of the race Albon reduced that difference by more than half, even lapping at about five or six tenths from Leclerc’s times which, in reality, remained very constant during the stint.

A crucial aspect, because the Anglo-Thai driver was able to defend himself from Alonso’s comeback in the final laps, when he became increasingly threatening, arriving on the edge of the DRS zone right during the final lap. Williams’ strength in Monza was, yes, having a car that was overall quick and competitive, but also believing in its strategy from the start, making it work to its full potential.