Today’s press conference with Mattia Binotto, James Vowles and Fred Vasseur.
Q: A question to you all first of all. FP1 done, can we start by getting your thoughts on the technical changes ahead of this weekend? Fred, perhaps we could start with you.
Frederic Vasseur: I think honestly, it’s never easy to do a change during the season because as soon as you want to change something on the regulation, you are impacting the relative performance of the car. But I think for once that we were able to do, let’s say, good work, even if everybody wants to get more. But at the end of the day, I think we did a step forward and I think it’s a good one.
James Vowles: Similar comment to Fred. I think, actually, well done to the FIA and well done to the teams for working collaboratively to find solutions very quickly. And it’s not one solution, there’s sort of 20 or 30 papered and gone through. As Fred says, we’re constantly fighting against each other for relative performance but ultimately this is a change to make sure the sport is in a better place and it was good to see the teams come together.
Mattia Binotto: Not much to add. I think everything has been said and great efforts, well done to FIA and to the teams. I don’t think it has affected much, by the way, this weekend. Miami maybe is not the track where you can see it the most and for us, FP1 has been so messy that we have not noticed the difference. But overall, at the end, even from outside, I think the fans watching will not perceive it. Maybe the driver will feel an improvement. Further improvement for the future may be required still, so it has been our first great effort together, but still more to come.
Q: Mattia, why don’t we continue with you? Allan McNish, his first weekend as Racing Director for Audi. Can you give us some background into that decision and why Allan? What does he bring to the team?
MB: Allan, first, he’s a great person. He has been a great driver, he knows Audi very well, he knows racing, what it’s about, he understands the drivers’ language, he knows what it means being at the pit wall, not only because he has been a driver but he has been a Team Principal in the Formula E team, so he knows the paddock, the journalists. He’s well involved with all our partners, so I think it was an easy decision and a great fit. And for me overall, it’s important to have him at the racetrack. Being Racing Director, I can fully trust him because of his experience. Already this morning, he was an easy plug-in in our organisation and that somehow helped me. I’m not there at all races and he is the one that will represent the team when being on track and again, he will do very well. I have no doubt. He has proven in the past his capabilities and furthermore, I think he’s already enjoying it. I saw him at the pit wall with a smile, even through, as I said, a messy session. So that’s a good start.
Q: Mattia, this feels like a bit of a restart for Formula 1 after the break. Can we just get your thoughts on the season so far and which element of performance the focus is on back at the factory?
MB: Obviously for us it has been a new start as well as a project, Audi F1 project, from Sauber to Audi. It’s brand-new regulations and I have to say overall we are pleased with what we have achieved so far. It’s very easy to make things wrong in F1 and you can see around us other teams have more difficulties. So, as a brand-new team, brand-new manufacturer, we are pleased. Pleased doesn’t mean to be satisfied. There is much to come. Our ambition is very high. Our long-term ambition is very high and when we look at the performance on track, still there is a big gap to the top competitors, which is not a surprise. Top competitors are very strong organisations, well-established organisations, and we know that in order to close that gap there is a lot that needs to be done. What there is? People, team size, infrastructures, capabilities, tools. But when assessing the performance on track, I think the most obvious is the gap we’ve got on the power unit, which again for us is not a surprise, it was expected. Being a brand-new engine manufacturer, you may expect such a gap to the best organisation. But here we’ve got plans ahead. It’s not a matter of being desperate. On the opposite, I think it’s assessing where we are. It’s a big, a huge gap, we believe, but we’ve got a plan of development for the future and we are focused on that.
Q: Mattia, thank you for that. I’m sure there’ll be some more questions for you in a minute. James, why don’t we come to you next? It’s been a frustrating start for Williams in 2026. How much progress do you feel you’ve made this weekend after the break?
JV: Yeah, a really messy winter and the break gave us an opportunity to reset, take a breath, catch up, form a plan for not just Miami, of which we brought upgrades here, but really what we’re doing now across everywhere up until the end of the season to put ourselves back into a sensible position, fundamentally. I am proud of the work that the team did. Every area was basically working at maximum capacity and that’s despite a difficult winter where people were putting in big, big hours. However, the gap is so large from where we are to the front that I’m sure we’ve made a small step into that, but it is a small step and we need to keep doing that across the number of races in the future in order to make a tangible difference. So positive first session but it is literally just one session and the gaps are still large.
Q: So, what does success look like for Williams over the remainder of 2026?
JV: For me, it’s as we get to where we finish developing the car, which will be after the August break, that the car is sensibly back to being the top of the midfield, with everything in a sensible position, building on next year’s car. In other words, the engineering we’re doing. So, the engineering that’s been done over the last five weeks is… all the weight is removed from the car, plus, it’s not delivered yet, but the engineering work is complete, plus another 10 kilos on top of that. That’s a sensible step. Pit stops are back to being in the top three, top four. There’s 150 pit stops completed. That we bring aerodynamic performance that translates on track. So here we’ve had an aero update and exhaust, although Fred was taking the mickey out of me that it’s a tiny little sliver for weight saving but it’s still good to see that across the board we have about 40, 50 performance projects and when they come, that they do deliver the performance we’re expecting.
Q: That’s a nice segue into my final question to you all. HR departments have been busy in the last few weeks but you have announced Dan Millner, ex-Mercedes, joining the team. When will his influence permeate through onto the car?
JV: It’s already starting now. Dan’s someone I worked with for many years at Mercedes. We’ve also had Claire Simpson from Mercedes join us today. It’s her first starting day. We’ll go through and do announcements on all this shortly. But there’s some great people coming over the next three months, fundamentally, three, four months, there’s more than that. But the impact that Dan has made to your question is already very significant and very quick. So we are doing swathes of work that he has experience on and actually we are taking a slightly different direction as a result of his input that has already come through now. And what I enjoy about Williams is there is no resistance to change for greatness. In other words, what I mean by that is we will point ourselves in the right direction and follow along with that as long as there is clear ambition and drive to this being at a championship level and Dan brings that.
Q: OK, thank you for that. Fred, let’s come to you now. A lot of upgrades on the car this weekend. What’s the initial feedback from the drivers?
FV: It’s positive but I think also that we have to keep in mind that it’s the first session of the season with this sort of track temperature and this is dominating everything, I think, for everybody. But overall, the first feeling is positive but we’ll see the real feedback and the real feeling after the quali.
Q: And what about the opening three races, podiums in all of them? How do you reflect on the job done so far?
FV: It’s perhaps difficult to draw a conclusion after three events but clearly Mercedes is a step ahead. They did three pole positions, three wins. Nobody can say something else. Overall, I’m quite happy with the fact that we didn’t leave a single point on the table, that efficiency is key, and everything went well on our side. I don’t want to speak about potential but strategy picked up everything. That means that we probably maximised the number of points that we were able to score on the first three events but still a long way to go.
Q: You don’t want to talk about potential, I’d love to ask you about potential because both drivers have said this is a really good car, and I’m talking about the chassis. How much potential do you think it’s got?
FV: Well, we are all at the beginning of the development. We took probably different directions and only the future will tell us if it was the good one at the beginning or not. But we’ll see later on during the season. But development for this races and the next one, we are still on the phase to have a high rate of development. It’s true for us, it’s true for everybody, and we will see after six, seven races perhaps something a bit more stabilised.
Questions From The Floor
Q: (Rachel Brookes – Sky Sports F1) Fred, could I ask you first of all, there is this ADUO, as it’s being called, the Additional Development Upgrade Opportunity. Do you believe that your Ferrari power unit will fall just outside of that two percent in terms of you’ll be able to use this opportunity for your power unit?
FV: Honestly, I think so. But I think everybody has the same feeling and at least the same quotes. Now we have to trust the FIA. They will come back to us with numbers soon and we have to rely on this. But at the end of the day, we are speaking about percent and I know perfectly that it’s not easy to assess but if you have an overall look on the straight-line speed, that it’s yeah, OK…
Q: (Sandra Baumgartner – Sky Sports, Germany). Hi Fred, I want to talk to you about the ‘macarena’ wing. Was it just testing today or do you really plan to run the wing this weekend?
FV: No, no, from today, we’ll keep the ‘macarena’ on the car.