The British team boss admits the Baku update was in the right direction, but insists the focus is on 2027. Sainz and Albon finished far from the top ten in Thursday's two sessions.
James Vowles has wanted to be honest about the true scope of the update that Williams has brought to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The British team boss, far from ringing the bells of celebration, has described the improvement as "a step in the right direction, but not enough", the statement perfectly summarizes the situation of a team that is going through a complicated season and that has placed a good part of its hopes on the 2027 project.
The Baku update is the most important that Williams has introduced this season, it includes a revised and lighter chassis along with a new aerodynamic package, components that the team had been developing for months. The decision to concentrate resources on a single bet was made at the beginning of the year, aware that the FW48 was not up to its rivals and that continuous development would not allow them to close the gap, the result is a car that on paper, should be more competitive but that still requires time to be optimized.
Vowles was clear in pointing out that the main objective of this update is not only to improve immediate performance, but to lay the foundations for the future: "It's more about building for next year and beyond, it's not where I would like it to be, nor where the drivers want it to be, but it's still a fantastic job by the team to redevelop a completely new chassis mid-season. It's a step in the right direction but not enough" Vowles declared to F1 TV after the first practice session.
The first data on track do not invite optimism, in FP1 Carlos Sainz finished twelfth and Alex Albon thirteenth, two tenths from the top 10. The session also left a scare for Sainz, whose brakes caught fire in the pit lane after barely fifteen minutes of activity, in FP2 the results were even more discreet: Albon sixteenth and Sainz seventeenth, evidencing that the team is still far from the points zone.
Sainz, however, showed himself slightly more optimistic than his team boss: "Overall I feel a bit better with the car and it seems we are a bit closer to the midfield. The laps I have done have been relatively competitive, taking into account how important track time is here and normally you always feel like you are trailing. For how much I am recovering, I feel I am in a good place now, we need to take the right steps ahead of tomorrow" explained the Spaniard.
Vowles highlighted the team's effort to reduce the weight of the chassis, a complex process that required passing the demanding FIA tests: "It's a lot of weight to remove and with the chassis, you go through very difficult FIA tests. They did a great job with that, they really pushed themselves, now we need to apply that not only to one object but to the entire concept of the car from start to finish" he detailed.
The Briton also warned that the results will not come immediately: "Whenever you introduce a new aerodynamic package like this, I assure you that right now the engineers will be in the smallest details, but you don't get it right the first time. Even when positioning the ride height of the car, the balance... there will be a little more to extract. We'll see but it's not enough to guarantee points" he concluded.
Williams' season continues to be a long-distance race, and Baku is just one more station on the road to 2027.
