James Vowles has laid out why Williams endured a “messy” winter as the team began to recover with its first double points finish of the 2026 season at the Miami Grand Prix.
After committing early to designs for the new 2026 regulations, Williams arrived in Miami with upgrades that finally delivered points for both drivers: Carlos Sainz finished ninth and Alex Albon tenth in the 57-lap race.
Vowles said the problems stemmed from trying to bring a completely new car and new processes together for the first time. Small inefficiencies, he explained, compounded across dozens — and ultimately hundreds — of details, and many only became apparent when the whole system was stressed.
“We started early in the wind tunnel, but we did not start building the car early,” Vowles said, adding that the team deliberately prolonged aero development in the tunnel to keep its advantages for as long as possible. That approach, however, increased the pressure when the physical car came together and exposed weaknesses in workflow and timing.
He described the FW48 as significantly more complex than previous cars — “one-and-a-half to two times more complex” — and said that complexity meant the development programme did not run smoothly for large parts of the winter. A string of crash tests, some passed easily and some that failed or proved difficult, pushed additional load back into the development schedule at critical moments.
Those failed tests contributed to a consensus in the paddock that Williams’ car was among the heaviest on the grid early in the season. Vowles acknowledged that adding material to improve part integrity was the straightforward fix at the time, but it created excess weight that the team now needs to remove.
Shedding kilos is not simple under the cost cap. Vowles said weight reduction must be done efficiently and usually alongside aerodynamic updates. “I don’t want to make exactly the same front wing several kilos lighter — that doesn’t make sense,” he said, noting that changes have to be packaged into updates that deliver aero performance and weight savings together.
Miami’s upgrades included a redesigned floor that allowed the team to cut several kilos, a step Vowles framed as part of a longer, constrained process of improving structural integrity and trimming mass without breaching the budget cap.
Despite the rocky winter, the double points finish in Miami showed the potential of the updated FW48 and gave Williams a platform to continue iterative improvements. Vowles said the work will be “painful” but necessary, balancing aerodynamic gains with weight reduction as the team tries to convert its development into consistent race results.