{"id":31193,"date":"2025-03-05T08:08:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T13:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=31193"},"modified":"2025-03-05T08:10:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T13:10:23","slug":"f1-williams-could-become-threat-for-top-4-teams-say-mclaren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/05\/f1-williams-could-become-threat-for-top-4-teams-say-mclaren\/","title":{"rendered":"F1: Williams could become threat for top 4 teams, say McLaren"},"content":{"rendered":"

Williams captured plenty of headlines during pre-season testing, with Carlos Sainz<\/a> setting the fastest lap of anyone in Bahrain. Both the Spaniard and teammate Alex Albon set some very competitive times – albeit on relatively low fuel.<\/p>\n

Regardless of fuel loads, posting purple sectors always generates excitement in pre-season. This is especially true for Williams, whose progress will be followed even more closely after the arrival of Carlos Sainz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to McLaren’s Andrea Stella, the data from testing suggests Williams could threaten the top four teams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why Williams have been identified as a potential threat<\/h4>\n

In many ways, it is important to exercise caution about the lap times set by James Vowles’ team in Sakhir.<\/p>\n

Fundamentally, Williams<\/a> were running significantly less fuel than the top teams when setting their personal best times.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is not to say the FW47 is not a clear step forward on its predecessor.<\/p>\n

The Grove-based team began development on 2025 relatively early last season<\/strong>. The crashes suffered at the beginning of 2024 meant that upgrades intended for later in the season were often postponed to make spare parts.<\/p>\n

As a result, Williams were pragmatic in developing what they had in the pipeline to prepare for 2025.<\/p>\n

Along with other midfield teams, the Grove squad want to climb the field over the coming years.<\/p>\n

Having looked at the data from Bahrain, McLaren’s Andrea Stella expects the top four teams to face new challengers:<\/p>\n

“Every team will always be looking at the information they have in relation to competitors,” <\/em>he told the media in pre-season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Definitely, we talked about not getting distracted by what we see from competitors…<\/em><\/p>\n

“But perhaps this year, we might have to adapt our language again<\/strong>… and then maybe the top five [teams] or the top six.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Alexander Albon (THA) Atlassian Williams Racing FW47.
26.02.2025. Formula 1 Testing, Sakhir, Bahrain, Day One.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Can Williams give the top teams a headache in qualifying?<\/h4>\n

When pressed on which team could upset the established order, the McLaren team principal<\/a> pointed to Williams.<\/p>\n

It is no secret that Williams team principal James Vowles is now focused on 2026 development. However, this does not mean they haven’t made important gains over the winter break.<\/p>\n

Having already set aside their resource allocation for 2025 and 2026, the crashes Williams suffered last year restricted their ability to bring upgrades<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Most of their budget cap had to be allocated on repairs and replacements.<\/p>\n

Because of this, the British squad finished the 2024 campaign without many of the components they had initially planned.<\/p>\n

This means Williams should take a clear step forward with the FW47<\/strong> – since they have a significant upgrade backlog.<\/p>\n

Threatening the top four on race day still seems a long shot for Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.<\/p>\n

However, especially in qualifying, they could be fast enough to punish the front-runners if they fail to optimise their packages.<\/p>\n

McLaren’s Andrea Stella elaborated on why James Vowles’ squad should not be underestimated:<\/p>\n

“We see that at low fuel, there are definitely several cars that are in condition to put together very competitive lap times<\/strong>, which I think are competitive in absolute terms…<\/em><\/p>\n

“It’s interesting that, for instance, Williams were very strong in the second sector<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Which is not only a sector of braking acceleration, is also a sector with a couple of medium-speed corners.<\/em><\/p>\n

“So I think this should say that Williams might have improved in that area.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Williams captured plenty of headlines during pre-season testing, with Carlos Sainz setting the fastest lap of anyone in Bahrain. Both the Spaniard and teammate Alex Albon set some very competitive times – albeit on relatively low fuel. Regardless of fuel loads, posting purple sectors always generates excitement in pre-season. This is especially true for Williams, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":31195,"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":[2452,66,94],"class_list":["post-31193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-mclaren","tag-williams"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31193","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=31193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31200,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31193\/revisions\/31200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}