Luke Browning has drawn a comparison between McLaren’s rise back to the top of Formula 1 with the current Williams setup, amid feeling “motivated” ahead of his first FP1 outing of the year.
The 24-year-old will make his fifth free practice appearance with the Grove-based squad this afternoon, ahead of this weekend’s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.
Browning, who will take Alex Albon’s FW48 for the hour, will follow it up at the following race in Austria with his sixth FP1, replacing Carlos Sainz at the Red Bull Ring.
In an exclusive interview with Motorsport Week ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix last weekend, Browning said he was hoping to show he is “ready” to tackle the car of the new regulations era, explaining that “good opportunities to drive the ’25” car has given him a chance to be “FP1 fit,” before revealing his insight of working with both Albon and Sainz.
“Well, both massively experienced drivers, and I think I get the opportunity to look at all their data, to understand the simulator, to correlate versus their laps, to correlate versus their simulator laps, so I get to understand where each of them is strong and just try and lead them to their experience,” he said.
“Obviously, I’ve not driven this year’s car yet, so it’s very different sometimes getting the simulator absolutely perfect and correlated perfect.
“Some circuits have been super well correlated and others not so much, but that’s part of the challenge, so it’s going to be interesting going into the rest of the season.”
Browning explains ‘good perspective’ on the background of Williams’ progress
Browning, now in his fourth year of being a Williams academy member, is firmly part of the furniture, and has witnessed the growth of the team in the lesser-seen areas.
And it’s that growth which has left Browning feeling like he is in a good place, and made the comparison between its trajectory and that of McLaren’s, which catapulted itself from the doldrums back to the top.
“I think there’s a lot of comparisons between McLaren and Williams and how to get to the stage of what McLaren have done over the last couple of years,” he said.
“You look at McLaren in 2023, Bahrain, locked out the back row, essentially [sic. Oscar Piastri qualified 18th, Lando Norris 11th], and then move on to 2025, 2024, the turnaround and the same regulation change.
“It’s very, very much about who you have around you and how much that team then comes together. So I really believe in it, and it’s going to be interesting to see. And I’m sort of one of the people that’s most involved in it, in understanding the future and seeing every part of the team come together.
“I’ve got some quite good perspective, even right down to the working level. I had a really good factory tour not so long ago to understand what every single person does in the factory to help put Formula 1 cars together. And I think often sometimes that’s missed on how big of a team is back at the factory.
“You know, over a thousand people all working together to put something together. ‘How do they all speak?’ ‘How do they all get the most out of each other?’ ‘How motivated is everyone when they come into work?’ And it’s been really interesting to see how the management seems to be superb here and what James has learned from his past experiences and how he then motivates me as a driver as well, you know.
“So I feel super motivated to put more into the team, to work hard at the factory, and to learn from the two drivers around us. It’s going to be interesting to see where we go in the future.”
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