Alex Albon, Williams, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2022

Williams to bring upgrade for Albon’s car only at Silverstone

2022 British Grand Prix

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Williams will bring an upgraded aerodynamic package for their home race this weekend, but it will only be available for one of the team’s two drivers.

Alexander Albon, who has scored all of the team’s three points so far this year, will run the upgraded parts on his FW44. Nicholas Latifi will continue to drive the team’s car in its previous specification.

“We have an updated aero package for this weekend, which will run on Alex’s car only as we look to check its behaviour and confirm that it is working as intended,” the team’s head of vehicle performance Dave Robson confirmed. “The bodywork and floor form the basis of the upgrade and are intended to efficiently increase the downforce of the car.”

Robson said it is important the team makes progress with its development package this weekend as its opportunities to test it in practice at next week’s Austrian Grand Prix will be more limited.

“The new parts… are likely to change the balance and the handling of the car and it may take a little bit of time to harness them so that the drivers can get the most from them,” he said. “With next week’s race in Austria being a Sprint event, we will be looking to get as much learning done this weekend as possible.”

Other teams including Alpine and Aston Martin have indicated they intend to bring upgrades to this weekend’s race at Silverstone.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on “Williams to bring upgrade for Albon’s car only at Silverstone”

  1. Unsurprising, given who’s likely to get sacked once the season is over.

  2. Writing’s on the wall really. Imagine after 2 seasons and then the new boy is given all the new parts. No doubt in my mind that Piastri will be on loan there next season

  3. I think they should sack him right away he drives like his grandmother at the moment.

  4. Wise decision, given that (a) they are cash-strapped and (b) Latifi, as great a person as he is, would probably not score points even if he was driving a Red Bull, so why waste upgrades on him?

    1. I’m not interpreting this as they’ll run it in the race. Sounds like they want to test it (most likely FP1) to measure it’s benefit and gather comparison data new for old.

    2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      29th June 2022, 22:24

      @fw11b

      You are stretching it saying he probably wouldn’t score points in a Red Bull. He scored twice last year in pretty much the worst car and his race pace was often pretty close to russell which went unoticed by many. On the whole though, he was still not very close to russell and this year has admittedly been dreadful by f1 standards. However, I feel that if he was performing at his best more like last year (yea, ok his best is still poor), I would say he would probably struggle to be getting podiums in the red bull, not points. I would expect even a poor driver to be able to rather consistently get points in among the best car.

  5. Sara Lee Cupcakes
    29th June 2022, 22:55

    Who knows? If it does work, maybe Latifi will have a change in form if it ever gets put on his car. I feel for the guy. Obviously he’s not super talented, but people crap on him just way too much. Hamilton fans act like it’s his fault Verstappen won the WDC last year when in actuality, Verstappen would have had it all wrapped up if it weren’t for a certain few incidents with Hamilton that should have resulted in Hamilton losing way more points.

    1. Chris Horton
      30th June 2022, 13:21

      This ^

    2. Indeed, actually latifi’s mistake brought justice to the 2021 season.

  6. Autosport reckon that the new package will look similar to RB18 concept. I hope it gets to Q3

Comments are closed.