{"id":22845,"date":"2024-08-08T08:30:23","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T12:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=22845"},"modified":"2024-08-08T08:30:23","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T12:30:23","slug":"f1-news-williams-switched-focus-to-2025-car-months-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/08\/f1-news-williams-switched-focus-to-2025-car-months-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News: Williams switched focus to 2025 car months ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>James Vowles is optimistic about the project that is developing at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/05\/14\/alex-albon-convinced-williams-on-the-right-path\/\" target=\"_self\">Williams<\/a>. He is confident the Grove-based team can make rapid progress in the coming years, including in 2025. The Williams boss has detailed the team&#8217;s approach to development.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Early focus on next year&#8217;s car<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>F1 is often an exercise in balance and compromise, with teams working on a combination of short and long-term goals.<\/p>\n<p>With the budget cap, teams are under additional pressure to prioritise and decide how their resources will be allocated.<\/p>\n<p>For James Vowles, however, it is clear the factory in Grove must divert its energy to the future.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"Cowhp_SnQGVKg35pjstVww\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2156555338\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Cowhp_SnQGVKg35pjstVww',sig:'fPAeCsOOhaDfmPCdSuhjhTxp2N5L6h_kuBLShuqPs_A=',w:'594px',h:'429px',items:'2156555338',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Despite still working on a few updates for the remainder of this year, the focus at Williams is now unequivocally on next year and beyond:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We&#8217;re also investing in 25, so our car in the wind tunnel is not the 2024 car,&#8221; <\/em>motorsport.com quotes him as saying.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It&#8217;s been the 2025 one for quite a few months.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;The reason why we&#8217;re doing this is not because I believe in 2025. But I want to get the 2026 car in the tunnel as soon as possible, but still have a sensible 2025 season.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Everything we&#8217;re doing is basically forward borrowing against getting everything as quickly as possible into 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;With the additional resources, we now have team members focused on &#8217;24, &#8217;25 &#8217;26, and a little bit of &#8217;27 as well at the same time.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"xsrgEP_WQhVxwsSEH2nndQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2151263577\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'xsrgEP_WQhVxwsSEH2nndQ',sig:'NMzdXitLQYr24mBM5ZAwDcIn7jM9Pw64P6RWkwlqTKs=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2151263577',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Williams work to accelerate transitional phase<\/h3>\n<p>As made clear by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/07\/21\/james-vowles-its-a-shame-williams-could-not-sign-ocon\/\" target=\"_self\">James Vowles<\/a> in his comments to the media in recent months, where Williams finish this year is not the priority.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, there are still limitations on what the British squad can achieve next season.<\/p>\n<p>The main target for the former Mercedes strategist is to put the team in a position to thrive when 2026 begins.<\/p>\n<p>This is the year when new regulations will reset the pecking order. There will be no excuses if Williams underperforms in two years.<\/p>\n<p>Having two high-calibre drivers like <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/07\/williams-carlos-sainz-will-bring-pressure-in-a-good-way\/\" target=\"_self\">Sainz<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/02\/albon-calls-on-williams-to-reverse-development-slump\/\" target=\"_self\">Albon<\/a> will bring elevated pressure and scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, as mentioned previously by James Vowles, these are the expectations the team must contend with to become a top team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Vowles is optimistic about the project that is developing at Williams. He is confident the Grove-based team can make rapid progress in the coming years, including in 2025. The Williams boss has detailed the team&#8217;s approach to development. Early focus on next year&#8217;s car F1 is often an exercise in balance and compromise, with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":22702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,465,915,94],"class_list":["post-22845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-f1-news","tag-james-vowles","tag-williams"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}