Williams boss James Vowles hopeful that ‘painful’ Japanese Grand Prix weekend will be a ‘line in the sand’

Williams boss James Vowles is hopeful that the team’s “painful” Japanese Grand Prix will act as a “line in the sand”, with the Grove-based outfit looking to maximise the break before Miami to deliver performance improvements.

With Carlos Sainz delivering a 15th-placed finish in Suzuka – a result the Spaniard was “satisfied” with considering the relative performance of the car – and Alex Albon coming home in 20th having completed a testing programme via six trips to the pit lane, Williams’ start to the 2026 season has been a challenge.

Last year’s fifth-placed finish in the Teams’ Championship was a sign of the progress being made, but the squad faced a tough pre-season as they missed the Barcelona Shakedown in January due to “delays in the FW48 programme”, though they later returned to action in time for both of February’s pre-season tests in Bahrain.

However, the team have openly admitted their car is overweight and that is severely hampering performance, though Sainz did score two points in the Chinese Grand Prix.

Now Williams are looking to make the most of the break in racing, due to the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix not taking place in April, to come back stronger ahead of the Miami Grand Prix weekend (May 1-3) as they try to unlock performance and get the most from the Mercedes power unit they have their disposal.

“We need to maximise these next five weeks in front of us,” said Vowles after the Grand Prix in Suzuka.

“It was a painful day today, and I want to make it a line in the sand and make sure we add performance every race going forward this year and fight back towards a point-scoring position every weekend.

“Well done to Carlos, it was a faultless drive and he did everything he could but that’s just where the car is today. And well done to Alex, he drove perfectly and then completed a test programme that will be invaluable for us for future learning.

“These next five weeks will be some of the hardest for us, purposefully so, as we dig deep and make sure that we come back with a car in Miami that is worthy of scoring points.”

While the FW48’s performance levels are not where the team or drivers want them to be, Sainz did take some pride in certain aspects of Sunday’s Grand Prix as he had a clean race on his way to an eventual P15 finish.

“We got absolutely everything we could out of the car in the race today,” Sainz said afterwards. “Also, another solid start and good pit stop timing meant we did our best possible race, so I’m satisfied with that.

“The team and I are working well to understand this car and these regulations, and I feel like we’re going into this early break ready to make some real progress on the car’s performance.

“We have to make sure we maximise these five weeks and head into Miami in a better position for the season ahead.”

For Albon, who was last of the runners in Japan due to embarking on a test programme to gather much needed data, he emphasised the importance of getting more out of the car sooner rather than later.

“Realistically we are achieving what we can achieve and executing our races as best as we can,” the Thai driver said. “But we just need to get on top of some issues and get a bit more speed in the car.”