Can Williams avoid being bottom in 2023?

Facts : Williams unveiled the new livery of its future FW6 on Monday February 45. Over the last 5 seasons, the stable Whole grained (UK) inherited the wooden spoon four times (2018, 19, 20, and 22). Can it regain the momentum of 2021 and take off from the bottom of the Manufacturers ranking?

Yes, by Julien Billiotte

If there are still many sources of concern at Williams, starting with the absence of a clearly identified technical director, reasons for hope also exist at Grove (UK).

Already, the British team has put an end to the experiment Nicholas latifi. Sympathetic, hardworking, and richly supported, the Canadian never crossed the threshold that could have made him a new Marcus Ericsson, an honest driver capable of scoring points here and there.

To replace him, Williams set his sights on Logan sargeant. There is no doubt that the American nationality of the 22-year-old young man weighed in the balance at a time when the F1 is booming in the United States. However, the Floridian seems a bit faster than Latifi. We will have to be patient with the kid from Boca Raton but with 23 races and 6 Sprints, Sargeant will have plenty of opportunities to get into the rhythm from his rookie season.

The best news of the winter from Grove is perhaps the surprise appointment of James Vowles as team principal. The lynchpin of the countless successes of Mercedes in the hybrid era, the former head of strategy at Brackley (UK) will take up his position on February 20.

Even if the recruitment of Vowles would result in a reinforced subservience to Mercedes, the man has the experience of winning and the culture of excellence: values ​​which seem to have evaporated for a long time in the Grove corridors.

Finally, let's take the question from a purely (cynically?) mathematical angle: to avoid finishing last, it "is enough" to take the measure of just one of the 9 rival teams. Who could this victim from the back of the grid be?

Haas, which certainly experienced a timid improvement last year, but remains subject to serious periods of scarcity? Aston, which had a very complicated start to the 2022 season before really turning things around?

If we stick to the dynamics observed at the end of the season, it is rather the scalp ofAlfa Romeo that Williams should be eyeing. In the second half of the 2022 financial year, Williams scored one more point than the Hinwil team (Switzerland).

No, by Dorian Grangier

It has become an unfortunate habit for 5-6 years now: slim are the hopes held by Williams at the dawn of a new Formula 1 season. The slump in which the British team, so powerful and dominant by the past seems to never end.

Since 2018, Williams has scored 39 total points. The record is not glorious: the Grove team has taken last place in the championship four times over the last five seasons and believe me, 2023 will not change the situation. 

If I allow myself to be so categorical, it is because the reasons to believe in a sudden rise in the hierarchy are tiny. Worse still, Williams is less well armed than in 2022. On December 12, Jost Capito (former principal director) and François-Xavier Demaison (former technical director) left the ship. The reason given? We are still waiting for it!

A serious setback which undermines Dorilton Capital's project... there still needs to be a project. Have the new investors, who arrived in 2020, even thought about a sporting roadmap? Or are they waiting for the value of the stable, once family and independent, to be high enough to resell it?

It is in this rather vague context that James Volwes, former chief strategist at Mercedes, arrives at Grove as Team Principal. A first experience for the English engineer, with the barely concealed aim of training to take over from Toto wolff in the future... but what about Williams' interests then? Become a Mercedes B team? 

Likewise, the team still does not have a technical director – we are less than a month away from the first Grand Prix of the season – and will have to rely largely on the feedback of its two drivers. Without questioning their talent, Alexander albon does he have the soul of a team leader to develop the car, like George Russell to take a recent example? Logan Sargeant, 4th Formula 2 last year, will he be able to be at the level, he who still has everything to prove? What about his adaptation in this unforgiving world that is F1… and especially for an American!

In short, so many questions which prove that, in my opinion, Williams does not yet have the foundations to begin his resurrection.

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