The Williams Formula 1 team has brought its last major upgrade of the season for the FW46 to the Singapore GP, and will thus rely on the current package for the remaining six races of the season.
Most teams are expected to bring major updates to Austin after the three-week gap in the schedule, potentially leaving the team exposed to losing competitiveness over the final part of the season.
Williams is currently eighth in the World Championship, only three points ahead of Alpine.
However team principal James Vowles insists that the aero package introduced at Zandvoort represented a big enough step to carry the team to the end of the year.
“The main thing is I have no concerns about the programme that we have in place at the moment,” Vowles said when asked by formu1a.uno about the lack of future upgrades.
“There’s a really good step in performance on the car this weekend, and we haven’t fully optimised the aero package that we put on previously.
“Everything that we’re trying to do, all teams are trying to do, is get the performance of the car as quickly as possible.
“So the way I more see it is that we’ve stepped up in advance, and we have a few more races to use it than others when they turn up.
“The second bit is all you can focus on is yourself. You’ve seen enough times this year that teams have tried to add performance, and it hasn’t translated.
“In our case we look positive in that regard, and what I can focus on is delivering the most that we can out of the car and the drivers for all remaining events.”
Williams Singapore package is focussed on the front suspension and brake ducts, with the new parts run by Alex Albon on Friday.
“It’s all about the trying to find that right balance, the through corner balance,” said Williams chief technical officer Pat Fry. “And also playing the high speed to low speed trades. That’s what we’re all trying to do at the moment.
“One little detail here leads into the others. Suspension elements, brake ducts, everything’s different.
“Aero is a sensible step, we managed to get a little bit of weight out. But there’s no golden bullets out there. It’s just the detail on everything, really. You have to do things as a package these days.”
Fry confirmed that there is nothing major left in the pipeline for Williams.
“There are a few little details to tidy up and sort out,” he said. “But that’s mainly it, what we’ve got now. Obviously we’re already working flat out on next year’s car as well.
“You’ve got to balance resource between this car programme, next year’s car programme, and obviously we’re also working on ‘26 at the moment. So there’s only so much you can fit in your resource and cram in a cost cap.”
Fry admitted that the large number of accidents that the team endured in 2024 has impacted the development programme.
“We obviously had a hard winter, and we’ve had a lot of crashes,” he said. “So in reality, we spent a lot of time making bits that we didn’t really need to make. So all these things, once you’re on the back foot a little bit, it does take a while.
“Certainly the upgrade at Zandvoort seemed to be working well at all the tracks we’ve taken it to so far, which shows that correlation is working.”
