James Vowels admitted to the media in Bahrain that “the mood has lifted” following a mighty opening day at Bahrain testing.
Nightmare start
Following a promising 2025 season, optimism was high for the Grove based team.
Heading into 2026 ahead of another big regulation overall, the team viewed it as an opportunity to gain momentum and begin challenging further up the field.
Yet it became quickly apparent that the team was experiencing issues behind the scenes.
Reports filtered out that the team was struggling with the weight of the car as well as failing to pass multiple crash tests ahead of the Barcelona shakedown.
Just three days before the shakedown was to start, the team announced they would not be participating. Instead, multiple behind-closed-doors tests would be conducted to ensure the team was up to speed.
Already concerns were high and these were accentuated when the car launch was moved to a virtual launch instead of the planned in-person launch.
Despite this, team principle James Vowels remained confident his team wouldn’t start the season on the backfoot.
“We’re pushing like mad,” said Vowels. “I would have much preferred to have been in Barcelona. That was the goal, that was what we were intending to do, and we did not achieve it.”
“So, there is a loss, but with six days of testing, with our driver-in-loop simulator – that we invested in, is state-of-the-art, and I’m very confident this is the benchmark in the business – up and running at the end of last year, we are able to mitigate a lot of those.”
Reliability a strong point
Arriving in Bahrain it was Carlos Sainz who was behind the FW48 for the first morning of running.
The Spaniard was straight up to speed, accumulating 77 laps in the opening four hours, the most of any driver.
It was immediately apparent that the mood had shifted in the Williams garage.
As other teams struggled with reliability, Sainz’s teammate Alex Albon took to the track in the afternoon and managed a further 68 laps.
This took the team’s total lap tally to 145, the most of any team on the opening day.
“It was a tough winter, there’s no doubt about it,” admitted Vowels following the session. “I would say we still have a huge amount to do before Melbourne. The facts are, we did miss three days of testing in Barcelona.”
“However, the main things are this: what you can see is, for example, in all of your pressure tappings and aero data, is there anything that looks odd? And the answer to that is no, fundamentally.”
“It will evolve as we go through, but what you’re looking for is that correlation to all of your simulation environments, and that looked good.”
With two days of testing left before a week break ahead of the final days of testing the team will seek to maximise their time on track in order to regain the ground they lost in Barcelona.
Feature Image courtesy of Formula 1