Alex Albon promptly got his second chance. Then in 2022, the positive surprise: with George Russell’s move to Mercedes, a seat became available at Williams.
Williams f1 2021 driver#
Albon spent 2021 as a test and reserve driver alongside the track.
After one and a half years with the team, Red Bull took him out of the seat. Image Credit: William West/AFP via Getty ImagesĪlex Albon’s Formula 1 career has been steep: he spent six months at Toro Rosso until he swapped places with Pierre Gasly at Red Bull for the second half of the 2019 season. Since this season, Albon has been driving for Williams, who, unlike his previous team, tend to run at the back of the field. However, this year it had a much lower downforce rear wing at its disposal, whilst also taking a half crescent shaped section out of the front wing's upper flap to help balance downforce front-to-rear.Ģ022 will provide many interesting subplots up and down the grid given the scope of regulation change that F1 will go through.īut, with the introduction of the cost cap and sliding scale for resources also a major factor, it will be fascinating to see if the likes of Williams will be drawn closer to the battle ahead.Alex Albon spent a year on the sidelines of Formula 1 after being swapped by Red Bull with Sergio Perez for 2021.
Ordinarily it would fit its car with a wing seen at other high-speed circuits and simply suffer the aerodynamic penalty of doing so. Williams' different approach to the use of its resources meant that the team also had a Monza specific set-up for the first time in a number of years too. This is a decision we've seen several teams take this season, suggesting that the new regulations have altered the course of the airflow sufficiently in that region for the teams to make adjustments.
Williams f1 2021 drivers#
The aforementioned upgrade package, introduced in France, saw the team make a raft of changes to its bargeboard cluster to help with the wind sensitivity issue that the drivers mentioned in the early part of the season. Interestingly this aligns neatly with a vertical fin mounted on the rear brake duct winglet cluster, which as we know are also narrower this year by regulation.
The FW43B had started the season with a row of fins jutting out from the side of the diffuser but these were replaced by a row of vertical fins.
Williams f1 2021 update#
The team has since replaced the three 'r' shaped vanes placed midway along the cutout and the slightly curved fin just ahead of the tyre (marked in red) with a cluster of fins right on the edge of the floor (marked in green), when it introduced its major update package at the French Grand Prix.Īnother small change was made at the third race of the season, in Portugal, when the team exchanged a solution that had been on the car during 2020 for something similar to what Ferrari has been using. This shouldn't be a cause for concern though, as the coefficient scale in operation between 2022-2025 is more heavily front loaded, meaning those at the front of the grid are pegged back more so than those at the rear. If it maintains eighth place in the closing stages of 2021, which seems likely, the team will see a further reduction for the first half of 2022, when it will be given 105% to work with. Changes to the distribution of resource wealth in F1 will have helped, as in the opening half of the season Williams was at the bottom of the new aero handicap system, allowing it to take advantage of 112.5% of the allotted time in the windtunnel and afford it the same privileges for CFD simulations.Īnd, whilst it didn't score its first points of the year until the Hungarian Grand Prix, which actually vaulted it into eighth place, when the limits were altered on the first of July, it was classified ahead of only Haas, reducing its windtunnel time and CFD usage to 110% for the back half of 2021.
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