The livery-launch imagery of the Williams FW48 doesn’t show it, but Williams team principal James Vowles hinted it has a bold front suspension design with possible echoes of Adrian Newey’s Aston Martin AMR26 - albeit not as extreme.
Speaking to selected media, including The Race, as part of its livery launch on Tuesday, Vowles was asked several times about his impressions of rival cars, in particular Newey’s latest creation.
While he implied he saw the front suspension geometry of the Aston Martin as particularly bold, Vowles believes Williams’s own design is distinctive.
“In terms of Adrian, I sort of intimated it a bit, but you'll see it in our front wishbone, it’s slightly different,” said Vowles. “But where Adrian's gone, Adrian is very impressive, very creative, very extreme. I wouldn't want to be a designer for that one, let's put it that way.”
The Aston Martin front suspension is a pushrod configuration, as is de rigueur under these new regulations. However, what stands out is the extreme design of the upper front wishbone. The forward leg is mounted high on the chassis, with the wishbone tilted at an angle.
The upper rear wishbone leg is not only much lower, but also significantly further back towards the cockpit as part of Newey’s trademark extreme aero packaging. This is examined in depth in Gary Anderson’s technical analysis of the car.
As the Williams images show a more conventional suspension, it’s likely we will not see the real design until the car breaks cover for the Bahrain test, having sat out Barcelona owing to delays getting the car ready.
Vowles paid tribute to the ambition of the Aston Martin, but gave the clear impression that Williams hasn’t dared to be quite so bold with the geometry of its own design.
“It's really impressive,” said Vowles of the Aston Martin. “Adrian is just a creative designer and it's really impressive what he's done with wishbones in places that I don't think they should be, but he's done them.”
The Aston Martin wasn’t the only car that caught the eye of Vowles. Although not participating in the test, Williams kept a close eye on goings on in Barcelona and cited Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari as impressing him.
“I've been really impressed with Red Bull, especially on the power unit side,” said Vowles. “To do a power unit from scratch and turn up to be that reliable is mighty. Well done to them.
“Number two, Ferrari's consistency. Perhaps the outright pace is in question, but the consistency is really impressive for them again from the get-go.
"And Mercedes always. I've been there for a long time, they're very good at getting regulation change right and walking out with a package that's just robust and reliable. But if you are doing a race sim just about a day into testing, it's very, very impressive.”
