A live stream of the car pulling out of the garage for the first time, a launch livery adorned with sponsors, and a full media offering - Williams's ambitious 2025 Formula 1 car launch has taken an early lead in terms of pre-season spectacles.
There was substance beyond the style, too, with a good array of new car images and team boss James Vowles, new signing Carlos Sainz, and established driver Alex Albon all talking extensively.
Here's what we learned about the FW47 and what it means for the journey Williams is on.
Williams is in a very different state
That Williams not only had a car up and running 12 days before testing, but also was willing to let it drive out of the garage for the first time in front of assembled media and guests and an audience following the stream, tells you how far it has come.
Last year, pre-season was a nightmare with a battle to get the car built in time for testing. And when it did run, it was overweight with too many resources then invested in whittling away at the excess kilograms.
This year, Williams has hit its weight targets with a car that is significantly more well-put together than last year's attempt. That's a testament to how far it has come over the past 18 months or so.
It made for a fairly serene launch event for all involved. Vowles was able to be relatively relaxed, in stark contrast to last year's stressed conversations, and both drivers know they have a car that they can hope to get some decent results in.
It's just one step on what's hoped to be a journey back to the front for Williams, but it's a manifestation of all the progress that has been made of late.
None of this positivity means results are guaranteed, but it shows this is a team that at least has a firm foundation to build from. Vowles himself admits that the all-new car for 2026 will be the real challenge, but what's clear is that over the past 12 months Williams has made a far bigger leap forward in the way it operates than would normally be expected in just a year.
And that's exactly what it needs to keep doing if the glory days are to return down the line.
Back up to spec in a key area
The biggest difference on the 2025 Williams is confirmation of a key mechanical change.
Williams is a Mercedes engine and gearbox customer which means using its rear suspension as well. But the rules allow older specifications - so last year, Williams stuck with the 2023 Mercedes pullrod rear suspension when Mercedes switched to a pushrod configuration for 2024.
This was a pragmatic decision that allowed Williams to focus on its development work around a known platform and helped with logistics like what spares Mercedes had available.
But that came at a small performance deficit - and it came across a little second-rate for a team with big ambitions to be using year-old kit.
Williams has quickly ended its temporary part poverty by switching to the latest-spec 2025 pushrod Mercedes configuration.
The pushrod is at a very shallow angle which increases the loads it's subjected to but means the transmission housing just behind the engine/gearbox interface at the centre of the car can be narrower.
This will allow that flow from the sidepod and engine cover to influence the flow towards the back of the car. You can also see how Williams has squeezed the inner body profile in this area to allow more air to flow through.
Another change with the new rear suspension is the upper wishbone's forward leg inboard positioning, which should help the rear of the car pitching too much.
This could be a big advantage under braking as it will keep the height of the rear of the car more consistent, hopefully improving the driver's confidence at corner entry.
What Sainz has brought to Williams…
Williams revels in the fact that it pulled off a coup in securing Sainz's services last year, having fought off the attention of many of its rivals.
But it is not just for his speed that Williams was so eager to get Sainz; it was because the Spaniard's experience and technical feedback were exactly what team boss Vowles felt was needed to keep his squad moving forward.
As Vowles remarked after Sainz's first run in the FW47 on Friday morning: "He just knows what excellence looks like.
"He was in race-winning categories last year in a car that was benchmarked for a lot of the year. And so he brings that with him.
"What he's very good [at] and able to do is digest that in a way that is clear and simple, such that we don't get lost."
Yet there is another element that Sainz has brought to the table; it's of his maturity and personality in uniting with team-mate Albon to help give Williams direction.
That Sainz's feedback of the car from his debut Abu Dhabi test last year was near-identical to Albon's was the best news possible for Williams - as it gives it proper indications of what to address.
But there is also a sense that Vowles isn't going to have to worry about managing any prima donnas.
Right now he has two drivers who are willing to work with each other, are firing off one another to push things forward, and are both happy to give up personal ambition for the greater good if that is the quickest route to the front.
As Vowles said: "This will not be successful if any one individual is above the team. Whether it's myself, Carlos or Alex. It needs all three of us and then the 1000 individuals pointing in one way, with the sole goal of this team becoming championship contenders."
…and what Sainz has found
Sainz may have been a Williams driver for a while now - having had that first test back in Abu Dhabi in December - but the Silverstone launch was the first time that he has spoken at length to the media about his new life.
And it is clear from both what he said and his body language that he has settled in well to his new environment, and that the move from a team fighting for the championship to one fighting for points has not led to any hint of him getting downbeat.
In fact, while he is not pretending that things will be easy on track - and he made clear to caution that he does not know how he will react when it comes to fighting for seventh places rather than wins - there are a ton of things in his new Williams life that he is enjoying.
Chief among them for now is the fact that Williams, a team that 12 months ago missed its shakedown and was in a world of woe with an overweight car, was able to hold an early launch and run to a strict schedule in front of the world's press.
Another positive is team-mate Albon, as the pair seemed to have gelled really well. Both are mature and experienced enough to understand that the journey they are on with the team relies on them working together - rather than against each other - as that is the only way rewards will come in the future.
In terms of what is possible on track this year, though, Sainz is keeping his cards close to his chest.
Shakedowns at a freezing cold Silverstone are not the sort of place that gives a clue of what kind of season can be expected, so don't anticipate Sainz predicting too much until he sees the cards everyone else has played in Bahrain testing.
March 2024 start for a 2026 benefit
"Every area I look at on the car is just a world of difference for me from where we were before," said Vowles of the FW47.
"We're not finished on our journey, and I'm not here standing on our soapbox saying that we're benchmarks - but we're on the right pathway to getting back there."
While part of the smoother Williams pre-season is inevitably down to improvements in its processes, its structures and its technologies - remember Vowles witheringly referring to the car build previously being managed in Microsoft Excel? - there is also a bigger picture to consider.
Williams is on a long-term recovery path and that makes a major rules overhaul like 2026 far more valuable than prioritising 2025. This complements a desire to avoid a last-minute rush in 2025 quite nicely! So Williams frontloaded the work for this year in 2024, so it can frontload next year's in 2025.
It started on this car very early and first had it in the windtunnel in March 2024. That early start plus a much smoother process means Williams is ready for the new season with a car on the weight limit, and hopes to be more competitive early in 2025, which in turn will allow it to put more time and money into preparing for the 2026 rules.
"I want to see how we get out of the gate," said Vowles. "But the bias is very much towards '26.
"On January 2, the first legal date, our '26 car was in the windtunnel - and hasn't exited since then."
Albon's outlook on his toughest team-mate
If Albon feels threatened by the arrival of a big name like Sainz in what has been, for three years, his team, there are no signs of that.
He sees it as "more of an opportunity" to have a driver of that calibre alongside him. Of course, Albon would say that wouldn't he? But he's also walking the walk with he and Sainz already having struck up a good rapport founded primarily on going over endless technical details of the car.
Encouragingly, Sainz's feedback when he tested the car last year matched what Albon had been saying all season and they both want progress in the same direction. For Albon, who has been something of a one-man show in his time at Williams, you can see the appeal.
Remember, for all the high-profile, big-money pursuit of Sainz this team also showed its confidence in Albon by putting him on a vastly more lucrative, long-term deal last year. That eliminates any risk of him becoming the forgotten man and it's clear Albon has set out his stall to work collaboratively to do everything he can to learn from Sainz as well as drive on the team together.
Both will hope that, some way down the line, they will be together in a Williams team that can fight for race wins and that will be the time to grapple for dominance.
For now, Albon has set out his stall to form a formidable alliance with his new team-mate - and that's to everyone's benefit.
Proper launches were possible
The ambition in the Williams launch came partly from the fact it's always a risk to shake down a car for the first time on a live stream - especially on a bitterly cold morning with rain in the air - and opt to have the radio between Sainz and his engineer open for people to hear.
But Williams also pulled off something that didn't seem possible for this launch season: a conventional, proper launch.
All 10 teams have been asked to keep their real liveries hidden until the special collective event at London's O2 Arena on Tuesday February 18.
Yes, we saw the 2025 McLaren on Thursday in a one-off livery: but there was very much a one-off livery. No sponsors on the car, one-off race suits. It was all fairly low-key on that front.
Williams played its version of this very smartly. This was a camouflage livery with slick black-and-blue detailing, missing some of the usual Williams accents. Up-close shots clearly showed the differences that meant Williams did what F1 asked by not revealing a race livery.
But the design work was subtle enough that, with the car being layered with sponsor stickers and details like the Duracell-liveried airbox that will still be there when the covers come off next week, from afar it looked like a Williams.
This means a launch and filming day with a proper 2025 car, in broadly the right colours, with its sponsors fully on display, and images of all that plastered across media coverage.
For the team and its partners - especially new title sponsor Atlassian - it's a handy win, and a sharp way to have effectively circumvented the biggest, most awkward limitation of this launch season.
