Williams might be getting its 2024 season back on track at last.
The once-dominant team, which has found itself at the back of the grid recently, had high hopes for the new season under James Vowles, who oversaw the shift to a much more complex car and internal processes.
Vowles, the team boss who moved from Mercedes, acknowledges it was a gamble.
"I told the team to have faith," he told Auto Motor und Sport in Miami. "If we fail, I'll take it on myself."
"Because if we hadn't taken a new path, we would have just stayed where this team has been for the last ten years."
True to Vowles' concerns, the Mercedes-powered 2024 car faced severe delays, the team lagged behind in producing spare parts, and the drivers began crashing and damaging the only two monocoques that had been manufactured.
Finally, a third Williams chassis is ready in Miami.
"It's not here yet," Alex Albon said on Thursday, "but it's about to arrive. It will be nice to know that there's some kind of safety net."
However, the car still lacks speed.
"Our car wasn't fast enough in China. That was obvious," Vowles noted.
In positive news for Williams, the first meaningful upgrades are now being added to the FW46, which, like rivals Alpine and Sauber, has yet to score a single point so far in 2024.
"We've managed to put a few new parts on the car," Vowles said, "and we have a bigger upgrade planned for Imola."
Albon added, "Everything is getting better with spare parts, and things are getting better on the chassis side. Hopefully we can now focus more on the updates and the overall development of the car."
