Ahead of the F1 Australian GP in Melbourne, Williams team principal James Vowles noted that the team knows how to improve its current package, while admitting it will take time to implement the necessary changes during the 2026 F1 season.
Williams had a rough start to the season, missing out on the 2026 F1 Barcelona shakedown earlier this year. The Grove-best team made it to Bahrain F1 testing, making up for lost time, but it became clear that the 2026 F1 season would pose an uphill battle for the Vowles-led team as they struggle for competitiveness.
In Qualifying for the Australian GP, Williams had only one car competing, as Carlos Sainz was unable to set a time and was out in Q1. The remaining Williams of Alex Albon finished the session in P15 around 2.0 seconds adrift from the benchmark set by Mercedes’ George Russell.
Asked to break down the deficit in a print media session, Vowles attributes 3 tenths to the operation of the power unit and a smaller portion to deployment, while maintaining that weight accounts for the largest share of the deficit.
The weight of the FW 48 poses the biggest issue for Williams
“The exact amounts, it’s hard to know because you’re breaking down in the background at the moment. What I would say, though, is you’re absolutely right to highlight that there’s definitely mass, and a large amount of mass.
“What Mercedes are doing on the power unit is something that caught us off guard, it took a qualifying for us to really see just how off the pace we are, in that regard, that’s probably three tenths, something in that ballpark.
“Then I think when you only have one car running, which is all we had yesterday, you need to have both of them in order to really start bouncing off each other and learning how to deploy the energy, and that would be a little bit of a deficit we had yesterday as well.
“But I think, really, the majority of the really big number is weight.”
F1 cost cap impacts how fast Williams can implement changes
Williams has identified the key areas of improvement ahead of the Australian GP, but given that teams are operating under a cost cap, the question is less about how to solve the issue and more about when.
Vowles believes that without the cost cap, the issue would be solved within a few months, as ideas to reduce weight have already been presented to the Williams F1 team principal. Despite having ideas, the British engineer was hesitant to provide a specific timeframe for resolving the issues plaguing the team’s current package.
“It’s not complicated to bring it down. Already, what I have in my inbox today is all of the engineering steps to not just bring it down, but actually be on the way and drive the amount that exists to us. If this were a cost-cap-free world, I would execute it tomorrow; it would be done in a few months. It’s not.
“So, you’ve got to time it with when those components effectively start to go out of life, and when we’ll be doing upgrades later on in the season. It’s a complexity, but it’s a good complexity if you see what I mean. Cost cap is still net, very positive.
“Answering that question, though, it will be hard to give an exact number; there are six races or so, so it might be quite a bit.”
The FW48 weight issue is far more significant
The FW48 is said to carry at least 20kg in extra weight, which translates to a significant deficit in lap time. The exact impact is unknown, though Vowles believes the numbers are more significant than currently suggested because certain factors have not been taken into account.
“So, if it was 20 kilos, it’s more than that. To explain why, it isn’t just the effect of mass. When people calculate their number, they don’t take into account the CFG amount changes.
“They do not take into account the impact that you now have on harvesting, of which it’s minimum apex speed, of which that’s impacted by weight. So, it’s bigger.”
Some changes will take less time to implement than others
Vowles anticipates that the team will implement some energy-related improvements quickly, while they will take more time to address issues like weight reduction. Wanting to finish the 2026 F1 season in P5 in the Constructors’ Championship for a second straight season, the Brit is aware of the uphill battle.
“On energy, it’ll be a few races. But on the total car package, weight off, aerodynamic added, to be somewhere reasonable, it’s going to be a while. I mean, the facts are behind it. I still have every intention to be fighting for P5 in the championship.
“Just the gap in front of us, the mountain in front of us is enormous, there’s no doubt about it.”
Williams will use the 2026 F1 season to address and resolve ongoing car issues
The drivers are fully along for the uphill battle, with Vowles noting that Carlos Sainz in particular is keen to iron out all of the car’s flaws ahead of the 2027 F1 season. He admits that some of the characteristic flaws have been persistent and surprisingly carried over from the previous regulation cycle despite the drastic changes made to the car’s design in anticipation of the 2026 F1 regulations.
“They’ve seen what we’re delivering, and when we’re delivering it, and actually what both, especially Carlos, is saying is, what he wants to make sure is that as we go into 2027, we understand everything.
“So, use this as a year to make sure we bottom out all of the issues that perhaps we’ve been carrying for the last few years. There are some particular characteristics of the car that are still in it now, which is surprising, a completely new chassis, front suspension, rear suspension, and ways of working.
“Let’s make sure that we do experiments across the year to get that into a strong position, whilst still fighting to go through it.”
The weight issue is “fixable over the course of the 2026 F1 season
Circling back to the inherent weight issue of the FW48, Vowles admits that it poses a “significant problem” that warrants “serious changes” to the team’s operation. While the weight issue is significant, the team principal deems it “fixable” over the course of the 2026 F1 season.
“The debate that’s clear behind it’s a lot. It’s a significant enough problem that we have made some very serious changes to how we operate, how we work and how we improve on it. It’s fixable in the year, that’s really important to note.
“But it’s frustrating for me, and this is the frustration I harbour because what all of us are doing is taking the weight off, looking well on the old timesheets and going, that would have been a good afternoon if it were there. Not with one car in the garage, but it would have been a good afternoon.”
Vowles believes Williams was not ready to deal with the significant F1 2026 regulation change this season
Analysing the root cause of the challenges Williams is facing at the start of the 2026 F1 season, Vowles feels the team was not ready to handle the massive regulatory change. However, the Williams F1 team principal also draws positives from the team’s current situation, noting that while there are visible issues, they are all “fixable.”
“And the reality behind it is it’s an output from us showing that we are not at the level required for such a large regulation change.
“It’s not something that happened last year. The car last year was below the weight limit at 5 kilos. I know the rules changed, but it’s still, last year, hard to get a car in a sensible place.
“Change everything, and our ways of working are not sufficient to be able to deal with this amount of change. In a really weird way, I’m very happy. There’s nothing I can’t see in the company anymore that’s hidden, and it’s all fixable.
“And actually, we’re not that far away from fixing it. But the output of it is an overweight car that we have to deal with at the start of the season.”
