Albon and Vowles: the duo who led Williams' great leap forward

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Williams remains one of Formula 1’s best-loved teams and will surely prove a popular choice for Scalextric, which has based its first modern-era F1 set for some time on the cars from Grove. The set includes a pair of Williams FW45s from 2023, which was something of a landmark year for the team as it strives for revival after too many years of under-performance at the back of the grid.

This was the season which began with a change at the top. In January of last year James Vowles arrived to assume the role of team principal, after earning his stripes as chief strategist at Mercedes during its run of world championship success. Some voiced doubts about the hiring. As a first-time team chief, was Vowles really the right person to lead Williams, especially given how far the team had fallen? That question appeared to be answered emphatically through 2023, during a season in which Williams rose from dead last in the previous campaign to an impressive seventh – its best finish in six years.

Vowles reorganised the technical team, which did an impressive job of developing the previous car into something that was much more competitive. The FW45 made it into Q3 in qualifying on eight occasions, compared to only twice for its predecessor, and qualified within an average of 1.2sec from the front of the grid – that’s a progression from 2022 of about a second.

But what really made the difference was Alex Albon, who appears in the Scalextric set driving the team’s standard blue livery. The London-born Thai driver scored all but one of the team’s 28 points that season and was generally perceived to have over-delivered on most occasions – and sealed seventh-place in the table in a tense standoff with what was then known as AlphaTauri in Abu Dhabi.

The FW45 proved slippery, resulting in strong straight-line speed, but was more of a handful on high-downforce circuits. Albon’s approach was to qualify higher than expected, then defend like hell in the races. Not easy. He pulled it off best at the Canadian GP where he won deserved plaudits for steering his Williams to seventh.

At Zandvoort Albon qualified a fine fourth in mixed conditions, then followed that performance up at Monza by qualifying on the top six – making the most of the FW45’s strong top speed figures. He scored another seventh place in that Italian GP. Also at the new Las Vegas GP he shone again on the low-grip, high-speed circuit, even if tyre degradation thwarted his hopes of adding to the Williams points tally.

As for Scalextric, the choice of Williams for its set was an easy one. “We’re trying to capitalise on the recent success and popularity of Formula 1,” explains the company’s head of brand Simon Owen. “F1 is back in the consciousness of the wider general public at the moment, so we wanted to work with an established British team that also has historical roots. We make so many F1 cars from the past – we have a Nigel Mansell Williams FW11B from the 1987 British Grand Prix, which is very popular. This is a little different – modern cars, modern drivers. So it was really about getting into that zeitgeist of F1, and Scalextric has a long history of working on F1 and with Williams.”

As F1 heads towards its winter off-season, the crew at Williams will once again strive for progress in 2025 – but with a heavy emphasis on preparing for 2026 and F1’s next big rules reset. That’s a huge opportunity for the team, as it is for its rivals too.

Meanwhile, fans can indulge their own Williams fantasies on household floors via Scalextric. Will Albon keep the upper hand – or will Sargeant in the Gulf car change the narrative? That one’s up to you.