The major Williams upgrades overshadowed by its floor problem

On the one hand, Williams’ revisions showed some huge promise in practice and qualifying – as Alex Albon put the team back in Q3.

As boss James Vowles explained: “We’re in a situation where that update is producing good results, and in a very tight midfield we’re able to put the car back into that Q3 position.

“That was also mirrored by a long run on Friday that again was positive. It had pulled clear of the midfield, and we were in a situation, in fact, at times, where our long run was overlaying with Ferrari, which is a very different situation to what we’ve been at the beginning the season.”

However, everything came crashing down on Saturday evening at Zandvoort when Williams discovered that an error with its own measurements had meant it had been running with a new floor that was outside the regulations.

While the unspecified issue that had made the floor too wide was an easy fix, and the upgrades ran in the race with a few subtle changes, having to start at the back of the field with both cars (thanks in part to Logan Sargeant’s practice crash) effectively meant the weekend was a write-off.

But while the missed opportunity to score points will have been a frustration, the team will be eager to see whether the early promise shown at Zandvoort can follow through to the next races.

Here then is a run-through of what has changed on the Williams, which is in effect a two-pronged attack of improved aerodynamic surfaces and weight-saving revisions.

The most visual of the Williams alterations comes with a change in approach when it comes to its sidepod design.

The team is making the switch from an underbite-style inlet to an overbite extension panel and under-slung inlet.

This follows in the footsteps of many of its competitors who have already made the switch, either at the start or during the season, to help unleash some aerodynamic freedoms, while retaining the required cooling performance.

In respect to the latter, the FW46 still has sizeable inlets beneath the new higher top lip of the sidepod.

The change in bodywork has also resulted in a less aggressive upper gully, whilst there’s a much larger undercut too.

This feeds rearward and around the sidepod’s flank, where the raised beltline exposes the narrower underbelly, which has also been reprofiled, albeit with a similar but ultimately more aggressive variant of the same…