Williams Formula 1 boss James Vowles has teased that the team has “huge amounts of performance to come” after its first points in 2024 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Grove-based squad had endured a challenging start to the latest campaign as tight deadlines to construct the FW46 left the team with a shortage of spare parts.
Vowles revealed earlier this month that Williams’ strive to overhaul the car concept has seen it begin the season with excess weight worth up to 0.45 seconds per lap.
However, Alex Albon capitalised on Monaco’s unique circuit characteristics being less penalising to that hindrance to progress into Q3 and secure a ninth-place result.
Vowles has divulged Williams, which now sits eighth in the championship, will aim to use its breakthrough result as a platform with updates to come in the next races.
“We have huge amounts of performance to come,” Vowles said in a video released on the team’s website. “It’s a long season, we are only just at the beginning of it.
“What we need to do now is build on what we have, make sure we understand at the factory what we did wrong in this circumstance.
“We didn’t get everything right this weekend, nor did we across the first few races. But we understand what we can improve going forward.
“We’ve got Canada where there’s more performance coming again. Across the next six rounds there’s plenty to look forward to.
“So we’ll keep that positive momentum going, make sure we’re delivering performance at the track.”
Vowles admitted points were possible in past races, “but there’s some elements of the car, including the overweight, where we haven’t quite delivered as we need to.”
But the Briton insisted Albon’s result would be a boost to the entire team, while the Anglo-Thai driver concurred that ending its drought will serve to spur Williams on.
“You rather have a nice, more interesting race to do it on,” Albon said. “To be honest with you I’ll take that.
“P9 is good for the team, gets us off to a start and means a lot to us. Never like to be pointless.
“It’s great for the morale of the team. Now we’re on the board we can use that to be springboard the rest of the season.”
