As the Williams Racing Team Continue to defend their seventh place in the Constructors Championship they only have two races in which to maintain their points advantage over their rivals. The first of these been the upcoming Las Vegas Grand Prix.

In a recent interview Team Principal James Vowles discussed his views on the race and how he felt the Williams team will manage the weekend on a new track combined with unusual times for the various sessions.

James spoke of his anticipation for the race saying: "I’ve personally been looking forward to Las Vegas for a number of reasons.

“First and foremost, I think it’s going to be a spectacle and a half of an event, but second because I think there are elements of it that will very much suit our car.

“Positives are, it’s a track where if you had to pick where you were on efficiency of the car, rear wing level if you like, it’s close to Monza, maybe just about Spa, than it is to all of the other ones. In other words, in a remit where we know we have tended to perform well and where the strengths of the car lie.”

James also commented on how he felt the night time temperatures during the various night time sessions including the race will also contribute to an improved performance from the FW45. Recent races including brazil highlight the cars shortcomings in hot track conditions such as they had in the recent Brazil race.
The high temperatures saw the FW45 struggle with high tyre temperatures which resulted in a poor overall balance.

Despite these factors which have the potential to play into the FW45's strengths James did add an element of caution in his assessment of the Las Vegas race.

James added: “However, it’s still going to be a brand new surface, a brand new and very slippery surface. You saw in Qatar just how much that changed across the weekend in terms of both lap times, but how the tyres were behaving.”

“That creates opportunity, but it creates risk at the same time. I think we may see some issues on those very soft compounds certainly right at the beginning of the race. Maybe it will improve as the race weekend goes on, but that may create risk or reward.

“I think that certainly compared to the last few events, it presents one of our best opportunities of making sure we maximise our points score and keep that gap growing relative to AlphaTauri in the championship.”

James spoke of how the team had shifted their focus to 2024 while their main rivals to continued to bring developments late into the season.

He said: “We stopped work on this year’s car many, many months ago. That may mean that we are putting seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship at risk. And even so, I’m very happy with the decision we made.

“Our journey isn’t one about whether we finish seventh or eighth in 2023. It’s one of how do we move this team back to the front.

“What you’re trying to balance in tandem is updates in the background, systems and structures, next year’s car, the 2026 car. And simply, you can’t put all those into the same sphere and hope you come out with success in all of them.

“We want to make a step forward in ‘24. We want to make a step forward in ‘25 and ‘26. And that will take time to put in place properly. You have to go through transformation.

“I don’t want to finish eighth in this championship and we will fight with everything we have until the chequered flag falls in Abu Dhabi to maintain this seventh place.

“But I’m also conscious that we’re asking a race team and drivers to do this with one hand behind their back. That’s okay. I’m still confident that the step on what we’re doing and the decisions we’ve made will still lead to long-term success over short-term game.”

So as we go into the Las Vegas weekend there are so many things to consider in terms of whether the team will have a successful race and how that plays out in terms of the championship. But I have confidence that the approach taken by James certainly will serve us well going into future championships. Can we retain seventh I am also confident that the team will do everything in their power to achieve this.