Robson: “Big stuff” still to come as Williams develops FW46

Williams will have an update package at the Dutch GP

Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson hopes that major updates will give the FW46 a boost after the summer break, starting with an initial package next weekend’s Dutch GP.

Robson conceded that the team didn’t do much to its 2024 car in the first part of the season, but promised that “big stuff” is on the way.

He added that at the start of the year the car represented a step over its predecessor, but that excessive weight held it back.

However, drivers Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant became frustrated as rivals made more progress with their update programmes.

“I think what was very clear at the start of the year, when the drivers still had last year’s car as a kind of clear reference, was that we made some very good steps forward with this car,” said Robson.

“Obviously, the weight, amongst other things, has kind of held it back a bit. But there were some very good steps forward, and that didn’t necessarily play out in terms of lap time for other reasons.

“But I think what’s happened since those opening races is that first of all, our drivers have really forgotten what last year’s car was like.

“It would be fascinating to put them back in it to remind them of some of the things that were really quite poor, that we did fix. And obviously their reference then changes more to just where we are in the pecking order.

“And frankly, we haven’t done a great deal to the car. We have saved some of the weight, which has helped the lap time for sure, and there’s been a couple of minor aero tweaks. But really, all the big stuff is yet to come.”

Robson acknowledged that windy conditions and hot weather have not been kind to the car.

“I think what we’re seeing is the drivers having to push everything to the limit and beyond to kind of keep up,” he said. “Because the pack frankly have just been pulling away, and inevitably, when it’s hot or when it’s windy, we see those effects.

“That’s when you need to underdrive a bit, and if your car is just a bit slower than those you’re trying to race, you can’t do that. Or if you do that, you just have to be satisfied with a poor finishing position.

“Then that’s not how the race drivers are wired. So I think we’re sort of creating some of those problems just by virtue the fact that the car has fallen back a bit. But hopefully that’s going to change in the races after the shutdown.”

Robson indicated that the team should gain by focussing resources on a major upgrade for after the break rather than on smaller but regular updates earlier in the year.

“Hopefully what it means is that actually the wind tunnel and the simulator programme have been able to work largely unhindered and just deliver hopefully some bigger steps,” he said.

“We’ve got to wait and see what happens when we get to the track, and whether we’ve actually delivered what we what we expect. and what we hope. I think we’ve seen that has become increasingly difficult I think in this rule set. I think we’ve seen people struggle. So we definitely won’t be counting those chickens until they’re hatched!

“But I think the reality is that the wind tunnel has been able just to get on with this big update, and not get too involved in the short-term smaller performance items that we probably would have been doing, had the design and production resource been available to deal with them at the time, which it wasn’t. So it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.”