威廉姆斯重大升级包亮相阿塞拜疆大奖赛，成败待定
威廉姆斯将在阿塞拜疆大奖赛带来重大升级包，车队领队詹姆斯·沃尔斯此前承诺这会让赛车“几乎完全焕然一新”。这包升级对近期性能提升和2027年研发方向的实际价值仍有待观察。
威廉姆斯F1赛车的这场“大改”升级究竟是成功还是失败？
一款更轻的新底盘承诺带来许多“创新”——但卡洛斯·塞恩斯表示，赛车今年年初就应该以此为起点
威廉姆斯将在阿塞拜疆大奖赛带来一套重大升级包，车队领队詹姆斯·沃尔斯在本赛季早些时候曾承诺，这套升级将让赛车变成“几乎完全全新”的一辆车。
到了赛季这个阶段，仍待观察的是这套升级到底有多大用处——无论是在即时性能提升方面，还是在2027年研发方向方面。
亚历克斯·阿尔本称这是一次“重大进步”，但队友卡洛斯·塞恩斯——他去年在巴库为威廉姆斯登上过领奖台——指出这次升级“更像是把车恢复到赛季初本应有的水平”，不太可能带来质变。
尽管国际汽联（FIA）强制要求的“赛车展示”文件中列出了大量空气动力学改动，但最重大的研发项目并不在清单上，因为从外观上看不出来：一个采用了大幅减重措施的新底盘。
FW48 完工较晚，由于未通过碰撞测试、需要对关键部位进行加固，错过了季前测试。该车到目前为止的表现特点是缺乏高效的下压力，以及困扰威廉姆斯多个赛季的操控怪癖，但最主要的问题还是超重。据了解，该车赛季初的重量至少比最低重量限制超出 20 公斤。
这决定了升级计划的调整，因为按照经验法则，每超重一公斤大约会损失 30 毫秒的单圈时间，具体取决于赛道布局。在迈阿密应用的这套升级包，以新底板和前翼为核心，并采用了法拉利风格的排气翼片，被描述为让 FW48 达到了赛季初本应有的水平，尽管仍然超重，超出量未公布。
此后的升级相对较小且频率不高，主要围绕减重展开，并且是在承重部件达到使用寿命末期时才应用。沃勒斯本赛季早些时候解释说，这样做是为了尽量减少开支，以便车队能够在一级方程式预算上限之内优先安排其他方面的投入。
但这也让人们对于承诺已久的B规格FW48终于在巴库亮相时会是什么样子产生了期待。现实地说，在与对手的发展节奏脱节之后，威廉姆斯不可能追回此前积累的全部差距——尤其是因为其他车队在这套升级获准投入生产之后，仍在继续推出各自的升级。
"很明显，今年到目前为止我们一直背负着相当大的重量劣势，而进入这个比赛周末，我们的赛车上还装了配重，"阿尔本在被Motorsport.com问及他的真实预期时说道。
"所以，你可以想象这会带来多方面的大幅提升。这再次证明了我们实际上在幕后做了多少工作。而且我认为，为了实现这一点，我们采用了很多新技术，也进行了很多创新。
"重量本身显然是一个很大的因素，而重量在圈速方面是有保证的。所以这就是为什么我们基本知道它会是很好的一步，不管空气动力学方面的表现如何。不过是的，这是一次不错的升级。
"我认为你还必须意识到中游车队，尤其是今年，也在同样努力地升级。所以即使我们有大幅升级，其规模也不足以在目前超越中游集团。
"所以，这是一次不错的升级，我想在任何其他年份它都会是一次巨大的升级，但由于今年目前这种形势，它不会让我们重新回到与那一集团竞争的位置。
虽然减轻重量自然会带来圈速收益，但一旦赛车达到最低重量限制，这种收益就会逐渐递减。如果底盘可以做到低于这一限制，那么就有空间通过战略性放置配重来使赛车回到重量上限，从而调整赛车的操控特性。
除此之外，更多的性能提升主要取决于空气动力学、动力单元管理、悬架几何结构以及调校。威廉姆斯在本赛季早些时候微调了其后悬架几何结构。
巴库站的升级套件除了更轻的车身底盘之外，还包括新的底板和尾部组件，其前部和后部采用了不同的空气动力学几何结构。前、后刹车组件上的导流件也有细节改动，后悬架同样有所调整。
一级方程式的空气动力学开发是一个迭代渐进的过程。不存在某一个可以单独更换或替换后就能带来半秒左右圈速提升的部件。每个部件都必须与下游部件作为一个气流系统协同工作，而改动效果只能通过赛道实测才能最终评估。
因此，威廉姆斯实际上陷入了停滞，而对手们则不断取得渐进式提升。指望一个尚未通过赛道测试优化的升级包就弥补全部差距是不现实的——就像阿斯顿·马丁在匈牙利站对迟缓的AMR26进行了大幅修改，结果也不过是比之前没那么糟糕而已。
塞恩斯说：“我认为在马德里我们可能触底了，威廉姆斯在赛道上的表现已经低到了不能再低的程度，因为我们比领先者的速度慢了三秒以上，比中游车手慢了一秒半以上。”
“显然，这一年开发不足的问题积累到了那个时点，而现在我们带来的东西才更接近于我们本应在赛季初就拥有的水平。但这毕竟只是本应一开始就有的东西，而不是赛季第十四站或第十五站才拿出来的。”
“所以我们仍然背负着冬天的短板和问题，要一直到明年，甚至是明年年中，才能达到我认为合理的、车队能够展现出实力的表现水平。”
“在马德里那样的赛道上，我们比中游领跑者慢了一秒半，而我知道我们不会给巴库带来一秒半的提升。所以不会有失望，因为我很现实，我知道我们面对的是怎样的数字。”
英文原文
Will the "big swing" Williams F1 car upgrade be a hit or a miss?
A new, lighter chassis promises a lot of "innovation" – but Carlos Sainz says this is where the car should have started the year
Williams is bringing a major update package to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, one that team boss James Vowles promised earlier in the season would result in an "almost completely new" car.
What remains to be seen, at this late stage, is how useful it will be – both in terms of immediate performance uplift and the direction of 2027 development.
Alex Albon has described it as a "big step" but team-mate Carlos Sainz – who finished on the podium for Williams in Baku last year – pointed out it was "more in line with what we should have started the year with" and is unlikely to be transformative.
While the mandatory FIA "car presentation" document describing the upgrade lists a host of aerodynamic changes, the most significant development is not on the list because cannot be seen from the exterior: a new chassis with substantial lightweighting measures.
The FW48 was finished late and missed the pre-season shakedown after failing crash tests which required key areas to be strengthened. Its performance thus far has been characterised by a lack of efficient downforce, handling quirks which have dogged Williams for several seasons, but most of all excess weight. The car was understood to have started the season at least 20kg over the minimum weight limit.
This dictated a shift in the upgrade plan, since as a rule of thumb every kilo over the weight limit costs around 30 milliseconds of lap time, depending on track configuration. The package applied in Miami, centred around a new floor and front wing, plus the adoption of a Ferrari-style exhaust winglet, was described as bringing the FW48 to where it should have been at the start of the season, albeit still overweight by an unspecified amount.
Further updates have been relatively minor and infrequent, largely based around weight saving, and applied when load-bearing components have reached the end of their service life. This, Vowles explained earlier in the season, was to minimise expenditure so the team could prioritise other spending within F1's budget cap.
But what this has also done is set up expectations of what the long-promised B-spec FW48 would look like when it finally arrived in Baku. Realistically, having fallen out of sync with rivals, Williams is not going to claw back all the deficit it has accumulated – especially since other teams have continued to introduce their own updates after this one was signed off for production.
"Obviously we've been carrying a substantial weight penalty this year so far, and I think going into this weekend we've got ballast on the car," said Albon when asked by Motorsport.com what his genuine expectations may be.
"So, you could imagine there's a big swing in many ways. It's, again, a testament to how much work we've actually been doing behind the scenes. And I think a lot of new technology and a lot of innovation was done to achieve that.
"The weight itself is obviously a big thing, and weight is a guarantee in terms of lap time. So that's why we kind of know it will be a good step, regardless of how the aero side performs. But yeah, it's a good upgrade.
"I think what you have to also appreciate is just how well the midfield, especially this year, are upgrading as well. And so even though we have a big upgrade, it's not a magnitude that can outpace the midfield at the minute.
"So, it's a good one and I think in any other year it would have been a massive one, but because of this year, the way it's going, it's not going to get us back into contention with that group."
While saving weight naturally brings a lap time gain, this tapers off once the car hits the minimum weight. If the chassis can be brought below this, there is room to tune its handling through strategic placement of the ballast required to bring it back to the limit.
Beyond that, additional performance is largely a factor of aerodynamics, power unit management, suspension geometry and set-up. Williams tweaked its rear suspension geometry earlier in the season.
The Baku update, beyond the lighter chassis, features a new floor and tail assembly with different aerodynamic geometries at the front and rear. There are detail changes to the flow conditioners on the front and rear brake assemblies, as well as the rear suspension.
Aerodynamic development in Formula 1 is an iterative and incremental process. There is no single part which can be changed or swapped out to find a lap time gain in the magnitude of half a second or so. Each component has to work as part of a flow system with those downstream, and the effectiveness of changes can only be definitively evaluated on track.
So Williams has in effect stagnated while rivals have found incremental gains. It is not going to recoup the entire deficit with one package which is not yet optimised through track running – in the same way Aston Martin substantially revised its tardy AMR26 for Hungary and the result was merely less bad than before.
"I think probably in Madrid we hit the bottom, as low as you can get around the race track for Williams because we were more than three seconds off the pace, more than a second and a half of the midfield guys," said Sainz.
"Obviously all the lack of development of the year had accumulated until that point and now we bring something that is more in line with what we should have started the year with. But it's still what we should have started, not race 14 or race 15 of the season.
"So we're still carrying the deficit and the issues of the winter and it will take all the way until next year, even halfway through next year to get to a performance level where I think it's reasonable and where the team can show the capacity.
"In a track like Madrid we were one and a half seconds off the midfield leader, and I know we're not bringing one and a half seconds to Baku. So it will not be a disappointment because I'm realistic, and I know which numbers we're playing with."
Motorsport.com ·
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