Under the leadership of James Vowles, Williams’ struggles in 2026 continue as Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz finished P12 and P15 respectively at the F1 Australian GP. After a difficult start to the year, when both cars missed the Barcelona shakedown and then struggled during Bahrain testing, the team’s performance did not improve for the season opener.
After the weekend in Melbourne, team principal James Vowles shared Williams’ learnings through the team’s YouTube channel. He admitted that the car was not quick enough and that they had come across reliability difficulties, especially during qualifying, when Sainz couldn’t set a lap time and was out in Q1.
Vowles felt the Australian GP “laid bare for everyone to see” the troubles being faced by Williams
Answering a question regarding whether Williams’ performance at the 2026 F1 Australian GP changed the team’s development direction, James Vowles answered: “I think first and foremost, it was sobering. It’s just now laid bare for everyone to see and for us to see the journey that is in front of us.”
He went on to congratulate Mercedes after their impressive weekend. It ended with Russell and Antonelli finishing P1 and P2. He added it set a benchmark on what Williams needs to achieve.
“We’re clearly nowhere near their level of understanding on the power unit and we have work to do and we will be doing that across the next few days.”
Vowles also stated that, although Williams’ overall development direction has not changed after the Australian GP, it did reinforce the need for improvements.
“In terms of actual direction of travel for the chassis, the updates that we have coming are already in the pipeline and have been on the pipeline for a few weeks and Melbourne itself doesn’t influence that. What it does change though is we have an aggressive programme and a slight tweaking and tuning of that over the course of the next few weeks to make sure we are taking that learning forward.
“There’s some areas where other cars are just simply better than us and we need to make sure that whatever developments we’re doing, take that into account.”
Vowles believes Shanghai will present a “different opportunity”
When asked about the different issues on the FW48 and which ones the team planned on fixing short-term for this weekend’s GP at the Shanghai International Circuit, the team principal was more reserved.
“The bulk of the changes of performance we have are more what I’d put in the medium-term bracket,” he warned.
“There are various performance upgrades, both aerodynamic and also in mass, that will come to the car, and those simply aren’t going to be available for Shanghai.”
Nonetheless, Vowles did suggest that the track at the Chinese GP would present many differences in comparison with the Albert Park Circuit.
Energy management will be easier with more braking zones and less full throttle time.
“Already for Shanghai, we can see a different way of using the car. First and foremost, it’s a very different track, it’s less energy-starved, it’s also a very different Turn 1 that requires a lot of combined load, and that puts the car into a different window.
“We didn’t have the best balance in Australia, it was a very narrow balance window that just meant that drivers were quite cornered in especially medium and high-speed corners against what they would ideally want, and Shanghai will present a different opportunity. We’ve also got a different set-up direction to try at the same time.
“Same on energy. I think there’s quite a bit that we’ve learned from Melbourne that we’ll take forward into Shanghai and hopefully use for a better way of exploiting energy. Now, it’s not as energy-starved, but even so, the optimum is still going to be very peaky and it’s making sure we get there on that.”
