Williams completes FW45 Shakedown

Like all shakedown runs the purpose of the day was to focus on things such as system checks and allowing the driver to assess things such as his seating and overall comfort. Plus these days also allow the team the opportunity to acquire some footage of the new car for marketing purposes

First in the car would be Alex Albon and after his test he was interviewed by Jenson Button where he gave some positive first impression of the FW45. Alex would then hand over the new car to team-mate Logan Sargeant.

One can always say that you should not read too much into drivers comments but in his post race interviews Alex did sound extremely positive about his initial impressions of the new FW45.

In the Williams interview Alex said: “It feels really good actually,”

“Sometimes you drive the car for the first time and it’s like, ‘OK, we’ve got some work to do’.

“Today was more, ‘You know what, this is a good baseline, we actually have a well-balanced car’.

“The pace is the pace but the feeling of the car is good.

“I’m actually really happy. I feel like we’ve addressed some of the problems.”

Later in the interview Alex did speak of the fact that the car was now on 2023 tyres and certainly not at the full spec that he will get to run the car in at the Bahrain test in a weeks time.

"There’s always going to be a bit of a ‘what if’ until you drive the real car, I don’t want to speak too soon, maybe we’re not as good as we think we are,” Albon added.

“But we’re going in the right direction, that’s the main thing. We’ve got a good baseline, a good platform now to go to Bahrain with and start adding some downforce.”

And he felt even the shakedown day had been more smoother procedurally than the start of 2022 had been.

“We have no issues right now,” said Albon.

“It’s the second year with these cars, so everything’s so much more seamless and efficient right now. We’re just rattling through it.”

Joining Alex Albon at the shakedown was 2023 signing Logan Sergeant.

He would comment after his run: "Our shakedown here in Silverstone is done. Really good day for the most part being able to sign off everything in terms of my seat, comfort, peddles etc and yeah the team got through everything they wanted to get through, gathered all their data. It went really smooth and really happy with how the car felt. So excited for what's to come and looking forward to getting out in Bahrain."

As for the FW45 itself the general feel was that it was a positive development over the troublesome FW44. The new FW45 did appear to borrow concepts from other Formula cars with Williams' own design interpretations.

One of the most noticeable feature was the sidepod which has an ridge along the top which appears to be designed to channel for the airflow towards the rear of the floor and the coke bottle region at the back of the car. Incorporated into the sidepod is a newly designed engine cover. Gone are the limitations of the FW44 where it's Silverstone update was limited by the location of cooling devices under the engine cover with the FW45 been able to relocate these devices to allow the team to design an engine cover with a shelf-like approach.

Built into the side of the engine cover is a gilled cooling panel allowing for additional cooling outlets. The top of sees a short shark fin section toward the rear of the assembly, a design that Williams had previously run. Other design features included the work around the mirrors and halo while the FW45's floor also took inspiration from what other teams had run in particular Ferrari.

Overall the design of the FW45 is a positive one borrowing on the designs on some of the more successful 2022 cars. It would appear to be a good foundation from which to develop the car over the course of the season and hopefully see them reduce the gap to those teams that were in front at the end of the 2022 season.