Vowles explains Williams’ strong start to F1 2025, admits infrastructure caveat

Williams team principal James Vowles has attributed his squad’s strong early phase of the 2025 Formula 1 year to gains it has made on “low-hanging fruit” developments for its car and factory systems.

The British team enjoyed a fruitful Bahrain pre-season test – finishing with the quickest time overall and competitive long-run averages when compared with its midfield rivals Alpine and Haas.

New recruit Carlos Sainz, who set F1 testing’s quickest time for the second year in succession after moving across from Ferrari, then finished second in the heavily disrupted opening practice for the season’s curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix on Friday.

In the same session a year ago, albeit at round three in 2024, Alex Albon crashed the FW46 so hard the car was written off for the weekend, so he was given then-team-mate Logan Sargeant’s car to complete the weekend.

When asked how positive the team was now feeling currently in the team principals’ press conference between practice sessions in Melbourne, Vowles said of Williams: “It’s a team that’s been through so much pain and when I joined a few years ago, you could feel it.

“I know I’m a man of science, but you really could feel this sort of difficult period that the team had been through, and that’s not the case now.

“But actually, one item that we didn’t talk about in there is our future. So, it’s great what’s going on now. This is what I would call the most low-hanging fruit that we’re picking up along the way.

“There are some great things that are happening back in Grove that are more coming online across the next few years, and you can see it in individuals that it’s just building this momentum and positive energy. So what you see today is just a little bit of a fallout for it.

“But it is an FP1. It’s great, it’s nice to see but it’s an FP1. Let’s wait until qualifying and the race and a few races in, which is also why I’ll bring everyone to our future and the destination we’re going towards.”

Much of Williams early year-on-year gains have been found by starting with the FW47 at the 800kg car weight limit from the off. Its predecessor had been so heavy to start with that it was giving away nearly 0.5s a lap this time last year, due to major inefficiencies in the team’s design and manufacturing processes.

This meant parts were produced later than expected and had to be made of heavier materials to try and shortcut the process as much as possible before lighter replacements could be built.

Albon suggested on Thursday that even around this, the FW47 was producing faster lap times than expected, although Vowles moved to play this down.

“I think where the car’s moved to, we need to reassess based on a few things, but it’s about where we expected it to be,” he said.

“But what Alex was talking about is, one of the aspects is – from a driving perspective – it gives them a lot more confidence than last year’s car.

“Formula 1’s a strange business. There are no silver bullets. There’s no one thing that just suddenly switches a car on and makes it better.”

For 2025, Williams has switched to a pushrod arrangement for its rear suspension – aligning it with engine and gearbox supplier Mercedes.

Vowles said this “helps a tiny bit” in terms of lap time gain but insisted his team’s improvements were more down to its changes elsewhere.

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

He explained: “What we’ve done over the last few years in terms of developing our tools and systems that produce better vehicle dynamics, better aero, a better way of combining the car together is all coming together at the moment, and that’s what makes effectively the package better and better.

“It’s really not one area, though. It’s a culmination of a team that’s starting to get strength working together.”

Vowles was also asked if he felt Williams was falling behind Aston Martin in terms of facilities development, with the green team announcing on Friday that the new wind tunnel at its heavily redeveloped factory was finally in operation.

But Vowles deflected the question, saying: “We fell behind 15 years ago, so it’s not a question of now.”

“We’ve been investing,” he added. “As Aston have been investing as well, and McLaren have been investing, for the last few years. So, the point of that investment is to try and stem where we have been and create a new future.

“Wind tunnel – without question, Aston’s will be benchmark, but I’m comfortable with that.

“Where we are on wind tunnel is, let’s see where we are, but we are moving slowly up the grid, which is an indication we’re probably using our facilities fairly well. So, in that regard, I think we’re ok.

“Where we have other issues is elsewhere within the infrastructure of the organisation, but we have plans in place to rectify that across the next years.

“It’s not something that you do overnight. So, it’s different – it’s not so much falling behind, we’re already on that investment pathway.”

Photos from Australian GP – Free Practice