It was only a few weeks ago that Williams dominated F1 news headlines for missing the first shakedown in Barcelona. At the time, the British team were perceived as being at a significant disadvantage heading into the 2026 season.
This narrative has slightly shifted during Bahrain testing, with Aston Martin’s performance and reliability troubles overtaking the previous discussions about Williams.
Still, this does not mean Williams are without any problems. In fact, the FW48 is understood to have some fundamental weaknesses – which are likely to put them near the back at the season opener in Australia.
Williams FW48 overweight, lacking downforce
It is easy to forget that, at the beginning of the winter break, Williams were seen as capable of potentially upsetting the front-runners in 2026. Whilst consensus aged very poorly, it was undoubtedly present across the paddock.
Having invested into the 2026 regulations earlier than most teams, the British outfit were expected to hit the ground running.
After all, James Vowles’ personnel managed to finish last year’s Championship in 5th place – the team’s best result since 2027. In theory, additional investment and preparation into 2026 should have given Williams a platform to further progress.
However, this is not the case.
To be clear, the worst-case scenarios that were floated when Williams missed the Barcelona shakedown seem unlikely to materialise. The FW48 has accumulated plenty of mileage and run relatively smoothly in Bahrain testing.
Despite this, the team’s delays have not come without a cost. As previously explained on LWOS, Williams pre-season mishaps could have consequences for large parts of the 2026 season.
In terms of the budget cap, James Vowles’ personnel were forced to rebuild some of the FW48’s components to meet the FIA’s crash tests. From a financial perspective, this impacted the team’s financial reserves – which would have otherwise been reserved for development.
More pressingly, to ensure their 2026 car was legal and compliant, Williams had to reinforce certain areas. This has contributed to a package that is severely overweight.
According to Telegraaf’s Erik van Haren, the FW48 is estimated to be about 30kg over the F1 minimum weight. This in itself would result in Williams losing over one second per lap from excess weight alone.
Moreover, as Carlos Sainz revealed in his Bahrain media duties, Williams are lacking downforce:
“As far as testing goes, I think what we needed over the last few days – which was recover the lost time in Barcelona by adding a lot of mileage to the car – I think we’ve managed to do that well.
“The car is running reliably from the beginning. That’s allowing us obviously to find out the limitations and areas we have to improve, which unfortunately, there are quite a few.
“But as I said, the main thing last week was mileage. Then this week we are finally starting to try and find a bit of lap time and performance out of it, and try and put it in a better set-up window.”
Finding free lap-time
To some extent, accumulating laps and gathering data is the most important part of pre-season. However, putting kilometres on the board is only part of the challenge for teams in testing.
After all, no matter how many laps a team completes, a car needs to be competitive. Testing allows teams to understand how their package performs and where they stand in the pecking order – but it cannot magically undo performance deficits.
This is not to say teams cannot improve set-up and understand how to find a better operating window. However, only upgrades – which the likes of Ferrari have brought to the second week of testing – can change underlying pace.
For Williams, testing has been crucial to assess the FW48’s strengths and weaknesses. There will have been plenty of learnings in terms of set-up work and learning about the Mercedes engine and its energy deployment.
Ultimately though, Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon understand that Williams need improvements to be more competitive. As it stands, Williams are perceived in the paddock as a lower midfield team.
This means the pressure is on for the British squad to make up ground with upgrades. As ever, the mid-season development race could be decisive in the season’s outcome.
One positive for Williams is that, purely by shedding their excess weight, they will gain time. Still, this is just one of many areas the Grove-based operation needs to find lap-time.
Main photo: Alexis Perrin/Atlassian Williams F1 Team