James Vowles, the current team principal of the Williams F1 team, has passionately come to the defence of their F1 challenger in response to the viral photos showcasing the floor of the FW45.
During the Spanish Grand Prix, Williams’ floor drew ridicule when Logan Sargeant’s crash and subsequent recovery revealed the simplistic design of the underbelly of the FW45, highlighting the contrast with other teams on the grid.
In the preceding race weekend, the intricate floors of both Red Bull and Mercedes were showcased, emphasizing the significant disparity with Williams’ FW45. This raised questions about the extent to which Williams lags behind their competitors.
Vowles, who made the switch from Mercedes to Williams during the winter break, dismissed the image as being captured from an unfavourable angle. However, he candidly acknowledged that the car did lack the level of features seen in comparison to its competitors.
“There were photos taken of our floor this weekend after Logan went off in FP3 and obviously those have been compared to photography taken of our competitors just a few weeks ago,” the team principal said.
“I think one thing to point out is that it is a little bit deceptive. What happened here is it’s very focused on that rear diffuser ramp unlike the other photos that perhaps focus more on to the floor and the mid floor where you can actually, within the regulations, add more detail.
“All that said and done though, we are clearly lacking detail relative to our competitors but you wouldn’t have needed the underside of the floor to know that, you can see that from lap times.
“That’s fundamentally a feature of balanced characteristics and how the cars performance and downforce as well at the same time and a lot of that is being generated by the floor.”
Given the nature of the Barcelona circuit, Vowles highlighted that Williams’ sixth race without scoring any points this season was not unexpected.
“Barcelona is a more normal circuit compared to perhaps the start of the season where we’ve seen a lot of street tracks,” the 43-year-old said. “It’s also a very high downforce circuit with a different aerodynamic efficiency to what we’ve needed for the first five or six rounds of this season.
“Typically teams will have three major rear wing levels of downforce, sort of large, medium, small if you’d like and it’s very much in the category of large. This really is in the category of high downforce and it doesn’t suit the characteristics of our car.”
