Williams is clearly on the rise, and the Constructors’ standings prove it: fifth overall in Formula 1 with 55 points, behind only McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
The most striking statistic, however, concerns the number of points scored this year. Consider this: from 2022 to 2024—full seasons— the Grove-based team accumulated a total of 53 points, which is 2 fewer than what they’ve earned in just the first 10 races of this year.
James Vowles, team principal of the British outfit, has truly begun to change things and is now reaping the first rewards of the work he started after arriving at Grove from Mercedes.
However, it is clear that to sustain this growth throughout the rest of 2025 and aim even higher with the introduction of the new technical regulations, much more will be needed.
In the last three races, James Vowles’ team has collected just 4 points, also suffering two retirements with Alexander Albon. The development process is ongoing, and some key areas are still under review by management in an effort to refine errors and procedures that are still not working.
The Montreal weekend served as a litmus test of what is still missing to achieve further progress. The FW47 is generally a very fast car, and on certain occasions they are aware of circuits where they may struggle (Monaco, for example). In Canada, they were expected to deliver a strong result, but it didn’t happen.
What was missing wasn’t performance, but reliability and some race-day decisions that clipped the wings of Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon. As for the Spaniard, beyond the unfortunate qualifying session (impeding by Isack Hadjar in Q1), both the power unit cooling and the in-race operations left much to be desired.
“If you’d told me on Saturday that I’d go from 16th to the points, I’d have felt proud. But I’m not, really. We weren’t able to show our pace at any point during the race,” said the former Ferrari driver.
“We struggled with the car’s cooling and had to be cautious on the brakes the whole time. We were constantly two to three tenths per lap slower than our real pace. Yet we were still fast, since we reached the points.”
“The issue, as I said, was with cooling the brakes and the power unit, and it’s not the first time it’s happened. We need to better understand what’s going on because for several races now we haven’t been able to run Sundays the way we’d like. It’s all very complicated.”
“Sauber scored points again, but they’re not faster than us. That’s frustrating. We were quicker than them all weekend, but seeing them take so many points is frustrating. We have to improve our Sunday operations. And I also have to help the team do that.”
Further confirmation of issues with the Mercedes power unit can be found in the recent retirements of Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Imola and Barcelona), as well as Fernando Alonso and Alexander Albon.
“The retirement was due to the engine. It was a power unit issue. We don’t think it was caused by the bumps the car hit when I went off track after the start, but rather a matter of overheating. I was stuck behind six or seven cars and had no clean air reaching the engine.”
“I’m frustrated because the FW46 is very strong in race trim and we could’ve easily scored points in Canada. But we didn’t manage to. I don’t think we’ll struggle in Austria or at Silverstone, though.”
On the topic of Sunday operations, Alex Albon believed the strategy in Canada was flawed: “Who else did a one-stop strategy starting on Mediums? No one. Everyone who went for one stop started on Hards.”
Over team radio, Albon had a heated exchange with the team about strategy: “We discussed it a lot. I knew I couldn’t make the Mediums last for the number of laps they wanted. I knew those on Hards would overtake me and I’d lose many positions on track.”
“I tried to pit earlier because I was losing positions and 3 or 4 seconds per lap. We ran that stint too long. That said, I also need to do a better job, because my first lap wasn’t good.”
Moreover, Albon doesn’t see track operations as something fundamentally flawed on a consistent basis, perhaps trying to ease the tension that arose over the radio due to the failed strategy.
“Honestly, the team has done a great job with strategies this year. We’ve always made the right choices in every condition. We’re strong in that area. I think only in Melbourne it didn’t work well. We had the pace and thought the one-stop would work. But graining is a recurring issue in Montreal and it slowed us down.”
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