🇸🇦 F1'25, R05: Forever the Revival

The bad old days feel like a long time ago, and the success before that feels further still, but it looks like there is a real buzz at Williams, with the pay driver days well and truly gone.

In Jeddah, Williams scored their 25th point of the season, and it’s their best start to a season since 2017. What makes it more striking is this is the first time since Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas where both drivers have contributed to the scoring.

It was a brilliant example of teamwork as well. VCARB’s Isack Hadjar scored a point in tenth, but was probably stopped from advancing to eighth from a brilliant tag team strategy from Williams. Similar to Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari win in Singapore 2023, the Spanish driver kept a car in between within DRS range so he himself would also not be overtaken. This time, it was helping to haul along his teammate Alex Albon, with Hadjar poking and prodding but never getting the run on Albon into Turn One, preserving the eighth and ninth.

It was a wonderful example of team strategy maximising a team result, in what people forget, this is a team sport. There are other ways of brute forcing team tactics - Multi 21, Fernando is faster than you, or what Haas did here last year where Kevin Magnussen’s race was compromised by a penalty, so he slowed up to give his teammate a pit window. Nico Hulkenberg took advantage of it and scored a point. Some teams were critical of the tactic, but Haas were unapologetic, claiming a first points finish in nine races if you include the previous season.

The other striking thing about the graph above is that Albon is the one outscoring Sainz at the moment. If you look back at the posting histories of a few prominent Formula 1 people as well as fans, they would have made the predictable prediction that multiple-time race winner Carlos Sainz would be the one to push Williams forward and that Alex Albon would be lucky to sneak a few points off the coattails of the Spanish driver. 

The theory was that the professionalisation of Williams begun with the signing of Sainz. But signing Sainz was a result of the professionalisation, not the cause.

It was James Vowles joining the Team from Mercedes in 2023 that brought with it some gravitas, some calm and helping match the expectations the outside world had for the Team. When Vowles joined, he discovered that Williams were using Microsoft Excel to develop their cars, and the 20,000+ components that make up an F1 car were at the mercy of Clippy.

That was replaced, and Atlassian are now on board as the Team’s named sponsor. Atlassian is responsible for JIRA, which is used for collaborative design and projects. Sidenote: It is also the most pass-agg software ever, with “Resolved: Will Not Fix” an acceptable option to “solve” issues. Being able to upgrade the processes behind the work saves time, allowing the finite resources to work on the parts of the car that need it most.

It hasn’t been the easiest process. Having to sacrifice Logan Sargeant in Australia as the team ran out of chassis ahead of the Grand Prix was a rare miss for a Team that worked on details again and again. But those days seem over now.

There is also a more assertive and confident Alex Albon, who has been throwing all sorts of shade on team radio this season. In Jeddah, he was told to watch out for the overheating coming off the car in front. Albon reminded them of the car behind not being too far away.

This would trigger at least three days of discourse if this was done by other drivers, but feels like the right level of spiky for F1 drivers trying to keep their cars out of a wall in Saudi Arabia. These messages, fun as they are for fans, are in most cases, understandable, and often come out of frustration from drivers. But also, it’s an expression of freedom.

If you were a driver tapdancing on eggshells and trying to be nice to your team, you wouldn’t necessarily tell your team that you’re make no sense. But if you’re secure in your job, maybe you can turn up the sass a bit - especially in the case of former Williams driver Lance Stroll and his friend Brad at Aston Martin.

Williams is motor racing heritage. Where most teams sell cars or FMCG as a day job, or at least an extension of a day job, Williams don’t. This is a pure racing team, a throwback to the days when motorsport enthusiasts would turn up to a racetrack and…well, race. F1 fans of a certain age will remember Williams being at or near the front. Nigel Mansell’s Red 5 winning the World Title, or Damon Hill. This is the Team that won titles with Keke Rosberg and Alain Prost - a Hall of Fame within its own walls. 

Williams currently lie in fifth, and that seems to be the ceiling and the expectation for the Team this year. Aston Martin are out of sorts, Alpine, VCARB and Haas are inconsistent and Sauber… are also…an F1 team. Haas are the closest contenders, just five points behind, and this is where they will rely on the experience of Sainz and Albon to get them where they need to be. If they do, it will be as a Team, rather than any one singular change made by a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

After a globetrotting triple header, the teams get a week to regroup before heading out to Miami for their first trip of the season to the USA. It will be the end of Q1 for F1 2025, and if rumours are to be believed, decisions need to be made by some teams on the return flight from Florida. There is a benefit to being quiet, and a benefit to being competent. By having both across the team, Williams are in a better position than they have been for several seasons, both on and off track.