Right here is your Williams System 1 FW46, the automotive Anglo-Thai driver Alex Albon and American driver Logan Sergeant will marketing campaign over the 2024 season. Ex-Mercedes man James Vowles took over as Williams staff principal on the finish of 2022, this would be the first automotive created below his oversight. Williams, after a short run of seasons behind the grid, completed seventh of 10 groups within the 2023 Constructor’s Championship; the brand new emblem on the FW46 sidepods might be a greater learn on the livery than the colour scheme. The staff signed Japanese manufacturing conglomerate Komatsu to a multi-year partnership, the 2 enterprises having labored collectively within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, when Komatsu offered gearsets for Williams transmissions.
There’s sufficient success in Williams’ quick buildup up to now, in actual fact, that the staff launched at sneaker firm Puma’s Fifth Avenue retailer in New York Metropolis as an alternative of the way more humble testing-day storage reveal it is restricted itself to lately. As for the colours, they’re principally the identical shade of darkish blue as final 12 months, offset by carbon fiber and Duracell’s gold branding. The pink and white pinstripes from entrance to again, as with the Komatsu deal, look again to historic Williams automobiles just like the FW10 that Nigel Mansell drove in 1997 and the FW19 that Jacques Villeneuve drove to the Driver’s Championship in 1997.
That is nonetheless a stepping-stone automotive, although, Williams bringing in new chief technical officer Pat Fry solely final July — Vowles’ first huge rent — and continues to improve its engineering and testing services. The FW46 will get its first shakedown on Feb. 20 throughout a promotional filming day, the right runs starting on Feb. 21 on the primary official testing day of the season.