The Williams F1 problems of 2026 began long before the cars reached the grid, with team principal James Vowles conceding that development mistakes made last winter are still costing the Grove squad every weekend.
Speaking in his post-race debrief, The Vowles Verdict, following a bruising Dutch Grand Prix won by Lando Norris, Vowles said: “We have made mistakes this winter, which we’re still paying for today, and the drivers are paying for on the car that we’ve delivered on track.”
The numbers are unforgiving. Williams sit ninth in the constructors’ championship on 11 points — all of them banked in the opening six rounds — with Carlos Sainz 16th on six points and Alex Albon 17th on five.
Sainz’s reading of the pecking order is blunter still: the Spaniard reckons only Cadillac now sit behind Williams, and that “Aston is a different league right now”.
Why the Williams F1 problems need a long-term fix
Vowles insists the response is structural rather than cosmetic, with only limited car updates due before the season ends. “We have huge numbers of projects, though, in the background to make sure that we’re just digging out what went wrong this winter and fixing for the long term,” he said.
The rare good news arrived before Zandvoort, when both drivers committed their futures — Albon signing a one-year extension through 2027 and Sainz a multi-year deal.
That mattered, Vowles said, because it came as the team began “to show the future that’s beyond here”.
It did not stop the pair colliding late at Zandvoort while scrapping outside the points, an incident that earned Sainz a 10-second penalty and full responsibility. Vowles accepted Williams must shoulder some of the blame; the drivers cleared the air over breakfast on the Monday.
