Dakar Rally News – Williams Aims to Shed More Weight for Improved Performance
In the latest developments from the world of Dakar Rally racing, the Williams Formula 1 team has undertaken a significant effort to trim down the weight of its FW46 car. The Grove-based squad has managed to shave off 14kg compared to last year’s model, but still needs to reduce the chassis weight by a similar amount to reach the minimum weight limit of 798kg.
The added weight is expected to cost the team around 0.450 seconds on more regular circuits like Imola, masking some of the progress the team has made in recent months. However, the team saw a glimmer of its true potential at the Monaco Grand Prix, where Alex Albon secured the first points of the 2024 campaign with a ninth-place finish in both qualifying and the race.
Albon managed to outperform cars from Red Bull and Alpine, as well as both Aston Martins, qualifying within seven-tenths of Charles Leclerc’s pole position in Q3. The tight street circuit and layout of Monaco, where the additional weight penalized Williams to a lesser extent, demonstrated the team’s capabilities once it can further shed pounds off the FW46.
“On paper, this track is the least weight-penalizing track of the year,” Albon said. “I think Monza is the most, and Monaco is the least. It makes it not a fair game, but a fairer game around here. Also, the DNA of the car has changed a lot from last year. And if you think about the areas we tried to focus on, it was low-speed, tight corners, which is exactly what this track is.”
However, the team’s Head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson, cautioned that it will be challenging for Williams to out-develop its nearest rivals, as production delays and crash damage have put the team on the back foot in terms of rolling out upgrades.
“Where we are now, it’s quite difficult,” Robson said. “It’s a shame we weren’t able to bring the updates earlier, build on the pace and the underlying qualities of the car at the start of the season. I think now we are probably fighting with Sauber most of the time. The car will get lighter as we go on, and there are some mechanical and some aero updates that will come. But it’s a bit hard to see how we will out-develop those teams over the course of the next five or six months because they’ve already got a bit of a head start on us.”
The team remains optimistic about its potential once the weight issue is addressed, with Albon stating, “It is, but weight is not that easy to lose. At least it isn’t for us. So, we’ve got some work to do to try to shake it off. But we’ve known that. We know our deltas every weekend when we compare where we are to where we could have been.”
As the Dakar Rally season unfolds, all eyes will be on Williams’ efforts to shed the remaining weight and unleash the full potential of the FW46, aiming to climb back towards the front of the pack.
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