Vowles: The home race was a good lesson for us

At the end of a three-race series, Williams finally managed to score points again, and this happened on the home stage at Silverstone, to the delight of the British fans. The main events of the past weekend were commentated by team principal James Vowles.

James Vowles: “It’s great to have scored points at Britain’s home race and both team drivers performed with confidence.

The whole weekend, from start to finish, was run in difficult conditions, as rainy weather affected almost all sessions in one way or another, including Sunday. As the race progressed, everyone waited for the rain to start, and when it did, it was very important to understand how long you could stay on slicks on a wet track before switching to intermediate tyres.

I don’t think we acted ideally in this situation. It would have been better to change to such tyres one lap earlier. In addition, Alex Albon lost about six seconds due to a glitch in the pit stop, and this cost us a lot of money, because the situation became seriously complicated, although we intended to compete with the Aston Martin drivers, and maybe even with Nico Hulkenberg.

However, if we talk about the pace we were able to achieve, it was not bad on dry asphalt at the beginning and at the end of the race, despite the fact that the front wing of Alex’s car was quite noticeably damaged after contact with Fernando Alonso on the first lap.

We tried to take action and correct something during Albon’s first pit stop, but still the aerodynamic bodykit of his car was not working as effectively anymore.

If we talk about the race as a whole, one of our assets was that Alex had two new sets of Medium tyres. Our strategists made the right decision that these tyres were perfect for these conditions, so they fitted them to Albon’s car at the end of the race.

At the same time, it was visible that Yuki Tsunoda, who was on soft tyres, was losing more and more speed with every lap, as his front tyres were working worse and worse. And Alex got ahead of him on the outside at Stowe, although it is not a typical overtaking spot, and we moved up to 9th position.

Logan Sargent also ran the race confidently, without making a single mistake in these difficult conditions. And again, we have to admit that it would have been better to call him to the pits a lap earlier and put intermediate tires on his car. But he could also have the opportunity to earn points if something happens somewhere further down the line. I think yesterday’s race was a good lesson for us.

Overall, it’s great that we were able to earn points at the end of a tough series of three races in a row, and this happened at our home Grand Prix, where our cars were decorated in a special way. This was a real reward for me!

The end of the season is still far away and our task is to try to close the gap in the Constructors’ Championship towards the end of the year, not only with Alpine, which has very little left, but also with Haas. But for this you have to keep working hard. It is unlikely that we can increase the speed of the car during the Hungarian stage, but I think we can do that already in Spa and after the summer break in Zandvoort and Monza.”