Team Torquing Points: Christmas Special

Our latest episode of Team Torque saw Alex, Franco and James sit down for a Christmas special!

The trio answered plenty of your questions and discussed a whole host of topics — from 2024’s key moments to what lies ahead next season.

Here are some of the highlights from last week’s festive edition of the hit series…

Franco kicked things off with a light-hearted look at how they do Christmas dinner in Argentina.

Franco: We don’t do Sunday roast, we do Asado. We like cows a lot! The cows are really tasty. I’m sorry for the cows, but in Argentina we really love them!

James: I didn’t know where you were going there with the cows, but now I know… so it’s just beef you consume?

Alex: To jump through this story, in the end what happens is you stay awake, you eat late…

Franco: Yes, it’s a 24 hour celebration.

FC43 also touched on some other culinary highlights and Argentina’s Santa-related festive traditions.

Alex, Franco and James responded to a number of questions about last season — including the most enjoyable moments from the previous campaign.

Alex: The first thing I could think of was the Komatsu digger driving, but I’m not sure that qualifies! That’s my version of fun, but I’m not a fun person!

James: That’s what’s coming out of this now.

Franco: The Team Torques have been your fun moments during the year.

Alex: Ok, Monaco was a lot of fun. We’ve never [previously] gone to Monaco with a car that we had confidence in and could enjoy it.

But that weekend we made a few changes to the car — we were doing some changes, if you remember, in FP3, going backwards and forwards — and by qualifying we had a car that was just…

Franco: Perfect.

Alex: It was on rails. We qualified into Q3, we qualified P9, but the lap felt amazing.

The trio reflected on the challenges of last term, too, as well as what they’ve learnt from each other and the fantastic team spirit that exists at Williams Racing.

The team will be aiming to improve on last season’s performances when 2025 rolls around, with James offering some insight into how things are progressing at Grove.

James: There is so much good going on around here for 2025 and 2026. There’s serious infrastructure coming online.

Alex: It’s weird listening to you with the [Christmas] hat! Anyway, keep going.

James: So for me I can just see some great things around us. It’s worth reminding everyone that the 2025 season kicked off on Tuesday, we’re already testing next season’s tyres.

And our Team Principal added further details in the closing stages of the episode:

James: We have some incredible people joining us and we’re a team that is really rebuilding. Some of the infrastructure and investments that we’re doing are all kicking online in ‘25.

There are a lot of good elements of the ‘25 car that you’ve both driven, and a lot of the vices of the ‘24 car fixed.

So I’m quite interested to see where we end up, but it’s a team that is forging forward. And as I keep going back to, 2026 just really excites me.