How Williams wants to avoid a repeat of its 2026 “disaster” next year

There are several reasons why Williams ' 2026 "disaster" won't reoccur in the next Formula 1 season, team principal James Vowles believes.

As F1 switched to new technical regulations this year, Williams started the campaign on the back foot. The team missed the Barcelona pre-season 'shakedown', and its FW48 initially was 28kg overweight. It took more than six months to reach the minimum weight, with the introduction of a brand-new chassis at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in late September.

After finishing fifth in last year's constructors' championship, the nine-time world champion outfit is down in ninth this season, with just 12 points to its name.

"I own the mistakes that we made this winter," Vowles said in Malaysia.

When asked by Motorsport.com whether he was confident of avoiding similar pitfalls and if the team was in good shape for 2027, the Briton replied: "I'm confident that we won't have any of the disaster we had this winter.

"In part, we have to accept, though, that's not as big a load that we're putting through the business because the chassis is already here. They're in front of you right now. That does make a considerable difference.

"But what have we done? We've changed actually quite a bit of the software systems, ways of working. We've brought in Piers [Thynne], who has been an absolutely brilliant godsend help in that regard."

Piers Thynne, son of Sheridan (Williams' commercial director in the 1980s and early 1990s), joined Williams in August. He previously spent nearly two decades at McLaren , where he rose through the ranks from a gearbox specialist role to become its chief operating officer in 2023.

"We have information we just simply didn't have one year ago that allows us to make a better call on that," Vowles continued.

"What you're not aware of, and no one here can be, is we think we're doing a good job with development in the wind tunnel and across systems, but you don't know until you turn up at the first race next year."

Back in Baku, Carlos Sainz qualified ninth – Williams' best result of the season – and scored the team's first point since the Monaco Grand Prix.

Asked to assess the upgrade that was introduced in Azerbaijan, Vowles explained there would be much more to come in 2027: "Chassis will carry over into next year. A lot of it was actually forward investing into making sure that's right.

"It's nice to see the car had ballast on it, so directionally correct, but it's too late in the season. That's the facts behind it. We haven't added enough aerodynamic performance. We've focused our cost cap dollars really on just getting the elements right that we need next year, and that was at the sacrifice. We left quite a bit of performance in the tunnel at home."

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