Rare Williams W not so rare anymore
Mclaren shone at home, but Williams was the weekend's quiet heroes.
It’s time we mourn the loss of a well worn meme: Williams can no longer be the butt of our jokes.
With Alex Albon’s drive to P8 in the British Grand Prix, Williams has moved up to P7 in the constructor’s standings, tied with Haas on 11 points. Logan Sargeant finished the race with a career-best P11.
This performance is no outlier: The British Grand Prix was Albon’s third points finish this season, with 10 of his 11 points coming from the past three races, where he has had three consecutive Q3 appearances in quali.
The Grove-based team was gifted with some immediate gratification this weekend for sure, but the swelling successes of the team feel like only the beginning of the road for the comeback kids.
Albon rocked up to the Silverstone paddock with newly dyed dark hair, a foreboding sign to the rest of the midfield. The three consecutive top five finishes in every free practice warranted a double, then triple take. To boot, Sargeant backed up his teammate with P7 and P5 finishes in the last two practices.
But even with Williams’ early success this weekend, there was the sense that there was more on the table for the team.
Albon was disappointed with his P8 quali result, a true testament to the changing expectations of him and Williams. He ran as high as P4 at the end of Q2.
The qualifying conditions were tricky for the team. While the Aston Martin car thrives in mixed wet-dry conditions, the same can’t be said for the Williams, which enjoys warm, dry weather. As the track dried up and the sun came out over the course of the session, the Williams car came alive. With the changing weather and evolving track conditions serving as such a large predictor of quali results on Saturday, it really seemed like it was bad luck over poor performance that tripped up Williams. The car, which completed its hot lap too early in the Q3 session, looked stable and quick.
Many teams, including Mercedes and Aston Martin, brought upgrades to Silverstone, but this week’s Williams upgrade, a rear beam wing, was modest.
Williams has, of course, been helped by the development misfortunes of Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri, the flammability of Haas, and whatever the hell Alpine are doing before Ryan Reynolds, Michael B. Jordan, and Rob McElhenney swoop in to save the team. But with such a tight midfield this season, Williams’ car — carrying a sturdy Mercedes engine — has offered the consistency that few other midfield teams have been able to match this season.
The Williams car isn’t revolutionary by any means. Not only does it use a similar scooped side pod design favored by Ferrari and Alpine, but it’s also a continuation of their car from last year.
New Team Principal and former Mercedes Motorsport Strategy Director James Vowles knows that the team has to work around its budget. He’s been outspoken about the implications of the cost cap for smaller teams. Williams has no issue funding upgrades, he said, but the team lacks the same infrastructure as wealthy teams, such as Mercedes and Red Bull. While Mclaren and Aston Martin can build new wind tunnels and simulators that will likely impact the development of their 2025 cars, Williams is stuck with their older facilities. They have to work both smarter and harder.
So far, they’ve managed to do just that. Their low-drag car philosophy means that the Williams is rapid on the straights, even faster than Red Bull on low downforce tracks such as Canada, where the team got their best result of the season in Albon’s P7.
With other low downforce tracks such as Spa and Monza approaching on the calendar, Williams has good reason to be hopeful about their season. But beyond these two circuits that favor low-drag cars, Williams may have more in hand. The team was left with some “head scratching” after its impressive FP results at Silverstone, a balanced track with high downforce elements. Silverstone’s versatility means that a good result on the track generally means the car in question is more than a one-trick pony.
Beyond the major practical steps Williams has taken to bring itself into real midfield contention, the team also has a rareness in its cast of characters: a new team principal with hefty experience in Vowles, a seasoned driver (with his fair share of past woes) in Albon, and a rookie who looks like he can keep up after finally learning what a kilometer is.
It all makes it easy to root for the team. It makes a P8 feel well worth celebrating.
On-track debris
Oscar Piastri is the real deal. The rookie qualified P3 and finished in P4, thanks only to a poorly timed safety car. Like teammate Lando Norris, his time will come. There appears to be a glimmer of hope for Mclaren, and it’s not just the reflection of the chrome livery.
A new Sergio Perez shit-talker has entered the chat: Former Red Bull driver Mark “Not bad for a number two driver” Webber said after Silverstone quali that Checo needs to put in the work to qualify better because anyone, even an “old fart” like himself, can overtake during a race. This is coming from the guy who puked in his car during a grand prix and still kept driving!!!
Norris was apprehensive at the safety car restart about his hard tires among a sea of soft tire enjoyers. It worked out for him, and he fended off Lewis Hamilton at the race’s closing stages. But the hards didn’t work out for Ferrari, who earned a mere three points this race after qualifying P4 and P5. Both drivers pitted for hards too early, and Charles Leclerc still pitted again under the virtual safety car. He finished P9.
Photo: r/formuladank via u/SentientDust Shakira has once again graced a grand prix with her presence, and Lewis Hamilton stays #Blessed with his P3 finish, his 14th Silverstone podium. You can read more about my conspiracy theory about Hamilton’s on-track performance while allegedly dating pop stars here.
