F1 tech expert names the team at Bahrain test whose car looks ’10 years out of date’

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Pre-season testing may have only just started in Bahrain, but already there’s a worry that the 2024 Williams looks 10 years out of date.

Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant had a difficult first day at the Sakhir track, although the American had a more productive outing on Thursday.

However, speaking on The Race Podcast and reflecting on Wednesday’s action, F1 technical expert Gary Anderson brought the British team quickly back down to earth.

Williams told their car looks 10 years out of date

It hasn’t been a straightforward start to 2024 for team principal James Vowles and his Williams team.

They launched the car at the start of February but all fans got to see was the new livery.

The FW46 didn’t take to the track for the first time until the days leading up to the first official running in Bahrain.

While they’re doing good work off the track – attracting their biggest-ever sponsorship deal – their development work went down to the final hours before the lights went green at the end of the pit lane.

Unfortunately, Gary Anderson isn’t sure Williams have done anything particularly exciting and the car is still 10 years out of date.

Considering chief technical officer Pat Fry admitted last year that some of the facilities at the factory are even older than that, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.

Vowles is sure that Williams are heading in the right direction but hasn’t promised immediate results.

They’ll be hoping that even if they’re not at the forefront of F1 tech, they can still compete for points on a regular basis.

Williams being left behind by F1 rivals

Reviewing their first day of running in pre-season testing, Anderson said: “The challenge of engineering is high in that regard. The Williams, I’m sorry, but it’s 10 years out of date.

“There’s nothing exotic about the engineering on it, it’s all relatively basic and that is the spread from the front to the back.

“As I say with the Williams, and they had a few problems today [Wednesday] so they didn’t actually strip it down a bit in the garage and again it’s the same old thing.

“When Mercedes or Red Bull strip the cars down in the garage, normally they would get it covered up pretty quickly or have people standing in the way.

“But Williams, they didn’t really bother with that too much and that’s why you can sort of say, they’ve got a radiator duct for example and it’s got a radiator in it, that’s it.

“There’s no real sort of sophistication there, it’s pretty basic.”

Williams will know they’re not at the same level as the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari yet, but to say some aspect of their car look 10 years old is harsh.

Alex Albon proved last year that they had a car that was capable of regularly challenging in the top ten, and they’ll believe they’ve taken steps forward since then.

Unfortunately, their rivals are likely to have done the same thing and the new RB team’s relationship with Red Bull means they may have fallen behind one of the three manufacturers who finished below them in 2023.

Until we start racing in qualifying next weekend, we won’t know for certain what level every team is currently at.