Coming off the disappointing performance across the Spanish Grand Prix weekend the Williams Racing Team has been questioned as to how the team would turn their season around, especially after such a promising start.

Williams has only scored a single point so far in the 2023 season, which has being below that which the team scored in 2022, but despite this lack of points the team has clearly improved in regard to other indicators such as that of each team’s fastest lap during a race weekend. Williams have reduce their deficit to the leading teams times by 0.74 seconds over an average 90s lap compared to that achieved in 2022. In the races covering the Australian to the Monaco GPs, Williams was between the seventh and eighth-fastest team. Prior to the Spanish race this was an encouraging start to the 2023 season for the team.

But then the team would move to the traditional Circuit de Catalunya and it was at this race that the team was exposed in terms of the lack of performance of its FW45, in particular its lack of downforce.

For team driver Alex Albon the Spanish race he would see him struggle across the weekend being at the bottom of the times and even with an improved performance in the race this lack of performance from the FW45 at this more representative circuit was brought to everyone's attention. It raised the question of whether or not Williams was in fact the slowest team despite their performances in the opening series of races.

Alex would comment on this by saying after the Spanish event: “I’m happy with myself. I feel like we did a good job. That’s where we are.

“We’ve done a few races now where the tracks have been a bit more, how can I say it, characterful - street tracks and unique tracks.

“You come here to Barcelona and it’s a proper racetrack and it exposes us a little bit.

“It’s no secret, we’ve been saying it more than anyone else, we’re still the 10th-quickest car.

“This weekend kind of showed that. We’ve got some upgrades coming, hopefully sooner rather than later. Hopefully, once we get that increased performance, we can fight in the midfield a bit more again like we were more at the start of the year.”

Albon added that a lot of his performances in the opening series of races came from his confidence in the tracks that he was racing on.

He continued: “We were on unique street tracks with characteristics where with confidence and driving, you can do a little bit.

“Around here, where every team’s done a million laps and every driver’s done a million laps, it’s very hard to break the trend and outperform it.

“It’s quite a tricky track and most of the teams have designed their cars around this place so it looks optimised, and it is.

“You look at qualifying and how close the whole pack is, and we were just kind of a step below there.

“We need some upgrades and it’ll come and until then it’s just about maximising the car we’ve got.”

But Williams has been faced with the challenge of getting the best from their car while other teams are bringing upgrades to their cars seeing the team drop even further back. This was highlighted by the recent image of the underside of the FW45 where it was shown to be well behind that being run by other teams such as Red Bull. Such was the significance of this disparity between Williams and other teams it would see Team Principal James Vowles make comment on it acknowledging the lack of detail.

But it has been also acknowledged that Williams is well behind their competitors in regard to other aspects beyond just the car but also the infrastructure that is available to Williams. Williams' Head of Vehicle Performance Dave Robson spoke of the plan that Vowles has put in place but said that the timescales involved are probably longer than anticipated.

Robson said: "I'm completely confident in what he (Vowles) is doing. The timescales involved in actually seeing the real progress, it may take us beyond '24, perhaps.

"There's quite a lot of rebuilding and restructuring, and getting his experience of what state-of-the-art genuinely looks like has been quite enlightening.

"But it does mean there's a lot to do and probably more to do than we thought there was. So, there's a lot to do but he's set in motion all of the right things, but there's a gestation period to all of that."

As for how the challenge between achieving improvements in the performance of this years car and improving the behind the scenes areas of the company that will see improvements in later years it is one that the team acknowledges will be a difficult one. The team has admitted that they are focusing on 2024 but they also know that the situation with the current car makes it necessary for the team to bring improvements to the FW45.

In respect of this challenge Robson said: "There's a bit of both.

"Those two things are not quite one and the same but to a certain extent they are, in that it's still just about understanding the subtleties of where the car is weak and making sure that at least what we do bring for the rest of this year does what we expect it to and is still helpful for the bigger changes that will come next year."

But even with a season that may not see the team achieve significant improvements in results it will not be a lost season as the team is still gaining a valuable understanding of the current car.

Robson added: "I think it still just comes back to the learning. That's still the most important thing.

"It's understanding the subtleties that you can get with some of the corners as to why the car doesn't behave as the drivers would like it to, and then taking that back to base and understanding what it is we need to do to make it work.

"I think we've got a reasonably good idea, but, obviously, making it happen is not easy."

So it would seem that Williams will face the remaining races in 2023 with limited opportunities to improve the performance of their current FW45, with hopefully an upgrade being brought for the British Grand Prix, but it is really going to be very much the case of being realistic in their expectations in terms of results. There will still be those tracks where the FW45 will be far better suited and with the upgrades both Alex and Logan should be able to return to being more a midfield prospect.

But there are those tracks where the FW45 even with their upgrades could still be the slowest car when one takes into account that the majority of teams will have updated their cars as well. Alex spoke of maximising the car prior to any upgrades but it will most likely remain that way for the rest of the season.