Why James Vowles has ‘no concerns’ about Williams going forward after missing Barcelona Shakedown

In the second week of January, Williams Team Principal James Vowles says he and the team realised there was a problem with production that left them behind on certain parts.

That left Vowles with “one of the hardest” decisions of his career – try to make the Barcelona Shakedown or skip it to ensure the team were ready for Bahrain testing with the in-season development plan unscathed. Neither was ideal but for Vowles, but it was clear there was only one option – the latter. And so ensued a painful period as they watched all 10 of their rivals get started on 2026 while they were on the sidelines.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to now, though, and things are looking significantly brighter, in yet another example of how quickly things can change in Formula 1.

The team have completed their first shakedown with the FW48 breaking cover at a damp Silverstone last week – with Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz getting a taste of their new office before the car was sent on to Bahrain for final preparations ahead of the first official pre-season test, which starts on Wednesday.

“I have no concerns about going forward from here,” Vowles tells me when we sit down to chat in the Williams Experience Centre, surrounded by a suite of historic Williams cars that combined have won nine Teams’ Championships and seven Drivers’ titles, at their HQ in Grove.

“As strange as this sounds, we need to as an organisation go through these sorts of events. I wish it wasn’t as extreme as what it was, but we need to go through that to make sure we absolutely flush out every part of our business that simply is not at the right level and fit the purpose and learn from it very quickly – and we are.

“What I’ve seen out of it is the drivers pulled closer together, the board pulled closer together, the team pulled together through this. Even while we’re still now in the midst of making sure we’re preparing for Bahrain and beyond, there was an ongoing review of what can we do right now to make sure that we make changes that bring us in the right direction forward.”

Vowles’ decision was made easier by the fact that, while they have ambitions to be World Championship contenders once again, they are not yet at that level.

The iconic British team are in the midst of a rebuild, which began in 2023 when Vowles joined as Team Principal from Mercedes, with all corners of the business getting attention to ensure they are strengthened sufficiently to cope with the challenge of trying to fight for wins and titles on a consistent basis.

They believe taking a hit now to ensure a smooth campaign ahead – even if they are playing catch-up slightly – is worth it, so long as it keeps them on course to be fighting at the front in a few years’ time.

“We’re not championship level,” says Vowles. “We’re not championship level across the board. But we are nudging everything forward in the right direction of travel and so part of that is there will always be investment in our long-term – and I can’t state that enough.

“That’s why 2025 (when Williams finished fifth overall) was successful. It was the investment in 2023. And that’s why our future will be successful. It’s the investments in the current year.

“That’s what I love about the cost cap. It forces you to, do you want to focus on the next race or an update? Or do you want to focus on goodness that can apply across the next three years fundamentally?

“It’s not as easy a decision as it may sound on the outset but, to that point, the reason for making the decision on Barcelona is to protect what we’re doing in terms of upgrade strategy across the year.”

Williams carried out a test in the virtual world while everyone else was in Barcelona, and Vowles says that helped them “remove some of the gremlins” which are normal when you have a new car that has been started from scratch after sweeping changes to the chassis and power unit regulations.

But they will have to do a bit of work in real life at the track early doors in Bahrain on areas such as correlation to ensure everything is working as it was in the sim world, whereas many of their rivals will have already done that in Barcelona.

Still, with six days of running, there is plenty of time to catch up and ensure they hit the ground running when points are first on offer in Australia.

What’s the target for this year, then? They finished fifth last year, with the highs of two podium finishes for Sainz and a superb P9 in the Drivers’ Championship standings for Albon after a stellar opening two-thirds of the campaign.

That was a big step forward, given the team had finished 10th, seventh and ninth in the previous three campaigns. It was even more impressive given they turned off development very, very early in 2025 to switch all resources to 2026 and the new rules in the hope of getting the headstart on the next generation of car.

Is it realistic to expect at least the same, or should they be more cautious given the level of competition and the fact they pleasantly surprised themselves with the level they showed last year?

For Vowles, it’s pretty clear. Yes, fighting for championships is the end goal, but last year’s form needs to be the minimum they should expect of themselves as they move forward with their rebuild.

“I want to treat last year as a baseline, the base we operate from,” says Vowles. “And we want to move forward from there. We want to move every part of the business forward so that includes simulation capability, aerodynamics, build of the car, design of the car, the flow of where we go on upgrades etc.

“It really is pushing the boundary and a lot of those are metrics that you can’t see. Some of them in the real world translate to performance on track.

“But it’s making sure that what we did last month is not acceptable for what we’re going to be doing in the next month. What we did last year is a nice baseline. We need to nudge it forward from there.”