A week ago, Williams unveiled the colors of its 2023 single-seater, an evolved livery that features the same concepts as last season and adds the sponsor Gulf. Today, however, he decided to combine two fundamental moments such as the actual presentation of the FW45 and his first moment on the track.
No official ceremonies, no static car, no statements. The FW45, after an initial look thanks to some photos released by the team in the late morning of today, entered the track directly on the British track of Silverstone, to take advantage of the 15 kilometers allowed by the sporting regulations for teams that want to perform a shakedown.
On the British track, Williams had an exceptional conductor: its former driver Jenson Button, who literally presented the event by following the first kilometers on the track of the new born from Grove step by step.
“It’s an exciting day. I’ve worked many years developing many cars and can’t wait to put them on track. The team does an installation lap with Albon at the wheel to see that all the systems are in place. But every When there are days like these it’s always a great emotion,” said the 2009 world champion.
A few kilometres, just enough time to understand that all the systems were perfectly functional before packing up all the material towards Sakhir, in Bahrain, where the first and only pre-season test will start in 10 days (February 23-25).
At the wheel of the single-seater Alexander Albon, driver confirmed after a good 2022. The Thai was in fact the only one to bring the FW44 to the points. The haul of 4 points at the end of the year guaranteed him another season, while Nicholas Latifi was replaced by rookie Logan Sargeant.
Alex Albon, Williams FW45
Photo by: Williams F1
The FW45 is not a completely new single-seater, nor is it extremely different from its progenitor. The work group coordinated by Dave Robson worked mainly on the belly area, a sort of evolution of those that made their debut last year at Silverstone, on the occasion of the British Grand Prix.
The packaging of the rear axle, especially the radiators, has been revised precisely in order to be able to work to find more downforce and improve performance in slow corners. In short, try to improve last year’s weak points a lot, while maintaining the good data regarding the resistance to progress that it had in FW44.
“Low speed, high downforce cornering was certainly important to us in terms of how we developed the car. I think a lot depends on its characteristics and how the riders can exploit the load it has,” said Robson.
“We’ve worked a lot on this aspect. It’s difficult to set a lap time target for something like this and then comparing it to baseline downforce and drag can be complex. But we think we’ve set some good targets.”
Alex Albon, Williams FW45
Photo by: Williams F1
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