Williams Racing ‘confident of step forward’ heading to French GP weekend

The famous Williams Racing F1 team, partnered by Acronis, is confident that it has made further steps forward to once again challenge for points as the calendar moves to Paul Ricard for the French Grand Prix.

Whereas it was only Alexander Albon who was able to benefit from new upgrades in Silverstone and Austria, now teammate Nicholas Latifi will also be able to benefit from new parts on his Williams FW44.

“Having introduced some new parts to Alex’s car over the last couple of races, we are now in a position where both cars can run with the upgrades,” commented Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance. “Although the weather in Silverstone, and the Sprint format in Austria were not ideal for testing, we have seen enough encouraging feedback to be confident that we have taken a step forward.

“With the weather likely to be warm, dry and stable this weekend, we’ll look to use Friday’s running to get Nicky up to speed with the new parts and also to continue to understand how best to exploit the performance of the new package.”

Throwback to the camouflage-edition FW43B at Circuit Paul Ricard last year 😅#WeAreWilliams #FrenchGP pic.twitter.com/gwuqXnbHh3

— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) July 18, 2022

With Canadian Latifi yet to break his points scoring duck this season, he is understandably excited how he will fare with the new equipment upgrades at his disposal.

“I’m super excited to get to France because it’s the first race where I’m going to have the upgrade package,” commented Latifi. “We’ve seen some positive signs from it on Alex’s car so far, so I’m looking forward to getting my first taste. Hopefully it can bring us that extra bit of relative pace that we’ve missed and put us more in the fight.”

As for the challenge of the historic Paul Ricard Circuit where Williams triumphed in 1986 and 1997 courtesy of Nigel Mansell, this year’s European heatwave will provide an extra test for Pirelli’s tyre range.

“For this event, Pirelli have brought the middle of their compound range, a combination that we used frequently at the start of the season, most recently in Miami,” adds Robson. “The high track temperatures and high circuit energy is likely to lead to tyre overheating, which will need to be managed during the race.”

Allons-y! 🤩🇫🇷#WeAreWilliams #FrenchGP pic.twitter.com/OU3JEFnV8m

— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) July 18, 2022

TEAM UP WITH ACRONIS

Prominent once again on the nose of the car and on the front wing endplates this season are the team’s official cyber protection partner Acronis. Williams Racing uses Acronis technology to add extra layers of protection to its IT infrastructure, protecting hundreds of servers and endpoint devices.

It's critical that we have access to data wherever we are in the world 🌍

Performance Engineer Andrew Vizard explains how @Acronis help us remain #CyberFit as we travel the globe ✈️ pic.twitter.com/7VA2WmnBRa

— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) April 6, 2022

During the 2021 season and continuing this year, Acronis opened up an exciting #TeamUp Program, giving new and existing service providers the opportunity to support sports partnerships, join the sports ecosystem, attend races and enjoy amazing sports marketing benefits. To find out more, please visit https://www.acronis.com/en-us/lp/msp-sports/