Racing
© Spencer
Williams is treating Formula 1’s unexpected five-week April break as a crucial window to strip weight from the FW48 and bring a visible step forward to Miami after a bleak start to its 2026 season.
James Vowles, Williams team principal, said the team has been “uncompetitive over the first three races,” with excess weight one of the main reasons. The numbers underline the scale of the slump. Williams, fifth in the 2025 constructors’ championship, is now ninth with only two points, ahead of only Cadillac and Aston Martin. Its only score so far came from Carlos Sainz’s ninth place in China, a result Vowles said was helped by problems for others.
The gap in the calendar was created by the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix due to the war in Iran, and Vowles made clear Williams sees it as more than lost race weekends. In a message posted on LinkedIn, he wrote: “The start of the season wasn’t what we wanted.” He added that “how a team responds to challenges says more about them than how they handle the wins, podiums, and rise to the top.”
Vowles tied that directly to the culture he wants Williams to show under pressure. “At Atlassian Williams F1 Team, we talk about accountability and resilience every day - if you walk through our factory or race bay, you’ll see them on the walls,” he said. “This break is where those values have to show up in practice.”
The response has centered on one obvious performance target. Vowles said Williams has used the break to go through its data, accelerate research and simulation, and refine its approach for the rest of the season. The drivers are back in the simulator, the crew is working on pit stop practice, and “on the development side, we’re pushing hard on all elements, most importantly the weight of the car.”
Alexander Albon, Williams driver, said the same pause could give the team a chance to “invert” its season because its problems are so fundamental. “It’s obviously the same for everyone,” he said. “But for us, we can take advantage of it a little bit more than the others. We have to, in reality.” He said Williams has been working “very hard on a big evolution for Miami” to make sure it is ready when racing resumes.
Albon also pointed to the compromise built into the break. More factory time helps development, but it also removes track mileage from a team still trying to understand its car. “At the same time, yes, we’re missing running, which is what we need,” he said. “We still need to understand the car better.” To compensate, he said the five weeks had been fully planned, with Williams spending almost every week at the factory on a heavy simulator program.
That work is aimed first at reducing the FW48’s weight, which Albon suggested should be noticeable by Miami. He would not say how much Williams expects to remove, replying “secret” when asked, but he added: “If everything goes to plan, you can expect the car to lose weight. We don’t know yet how much, but it will be quite significant.”
Vowles has set the same race as the first real checkpoint. “Every hour of this period has a purpose,” he said. “Miami is the opportunity to show our next step forward.” He also cautioned that Williams does not expect to arrive as “the finished article,” but after three races that left it near the back, the team’s immediate fight is to prove the break has started to turn a heavyweight, uncompetitive car back toward the points.