Williams team boss James Vowles has delivered a robust defence of the squad’s 2026 pre-season situation, insisting that missing the Barcelona shakedown was a calculated — if “incredibly painful” — decision, while firmly dismissing claims that the FW48 will begin the new season carrying a significant weight penalty.
The Grove-based outfit opted last week to pull out of Formula 1’s first official test of the new era, forfeiting three days of running in Spain and immediately fuelling speculation about deeper technical problems behind the scenes.
Speaking to selected media on Wednesday, Vowles acknowledged that Williams’ aggressive approach to the FW48 programme stretched the organisation further than ever before, particularly in manufacturing and logistics.
Pushing Limits – And Paying the Price
"The car this year that we've built is about three times more complicated than anything we have put through our business beforehand," Vowles explained.
"It means the amount of load going through our system is about three times what it used to be. And we started falling a little bit behind and late on parts.”
Despite the delays, Vowles clarified that the team hasn't been stuck in the garage due to safety failures. He confirmed the car has successfully cleared its homologation hurdles, despite some minor friction along the way.
"In addition to that, we have absolutely pushed the boundaries of what we're doing in certain areas, and one of those is in certain corresponding tests that go with it. But those were only a blip in the grand scheme of things,” he continued.
"They are one item out of quite a few that were pushing us absolutely beyond the limit of what we can achieve in the space of time that we have available to us.
“So, it's more of an output of pushing not just the boundaries of design, but the boundaries of simply how many components can be pushed through a factory in a very short space of time."
Shutting Down the Weight Rumours
The decision to skip Barcelona sparked rumours that Williams had been forced into heavy reinforcements, potentially leaving the FW48 well over the minimum weight.
Vowles was unequivocal in his response.
"There's no knowledge for the weight until we get to the second Bahrain test in terms of understanding where it is. You need to get all the sensor packs off to actually understand where we are,” the Briton explained.
“It's impossible to know it because you need the car together without sensors in the right form, and that doesn't exist today.
"The numbers we're talking about are probably small enough that I need to see the car weighed in order for me to be able to assess where we are. So, it's not miles over to that point. Right now, anything that you're seeing as murmurings in the media are murmurings."
Why Barcelona Was Sacrificed
Vowles also revealed that Williams could have made the Barcelona shakedown – but only by taking risks he felt would compromise the early races.
"We could have made Barcelona testing, simple as that. But in doing so, I would have to turn upside down the impact on spares components and updates across Bahrain, Melbourne and beyond," he explained.
"The evaluation of it was that for running in a cold damp Barcelona against doing a virtual track test against the spare situation – and frankly, there was zero points for running in a shakedown test – we made the decision.
"I stand by it that the right thing to do is to make sure we're turning up at Bahrain correctly prepared and prepared in Melbourne as well."
While the absence in Spain stung, Williams remain confident their longer-term thinking will pay dividends – arriving in Bahrain ready, reliable, and focused on making the most of Formula 1’s clean-sheet 2026 opportunity.
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