– “2026 is the big year I want to focus on,” James Vowles said just over a year ago. Even before the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season, the team boss announced that Williams wanted to take another step back towards the top of the field with the new regulations in the premier class.
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After finishing the 2025 season in P5 in the Constructors’ Championship, hopes for 2026 were accordingly high. But instead of closing the gap to the top, the exact opposite happened at the beginning of the year and Williams fell back again.
With only two points, they are in ninth place in the championship after the first three races of the 2026 season. Only newcomer Cadillac and problem child Aston Martin are still behind Williams in the World Championship. And James Vowles no longer sounds as optimistic as a year ago.
In an interview on the YouTube channel of padel player Frankie Langan, he explains that it is still his long-term goal to become world champion with Williams. “That’s why I’m here,” says Vowles.
However, he also clarifies: “It is completely out of the question that we will be in this situation this year. While I would very much like it, I want to tell everyone that, realistically, we still have a long way to go to achieve that.”
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Vowles: “Investments” will only pay off in years
“As for why it’s not working out this year: That’s because we are making investments that will only bear fruit between 2028 and 2030,” he explains. Vowles thus suggests that Williams’ return to the top of Formula 1 could still take years.
Although he never said in the past that Williams wanted to compete for the title as early as 2026, he repeatedly emphasized how important the current year was for Williams – which is why, after the false start, legitimate doubts are now arising as to whether they are really moving in the right direction.
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Vowles explains in this context that it is “much more difficult” to advance from the midfield into the top 3 than to improve from P9 to P5 in the championship, as Williams managed in 2025. The task ahead of the team is now twice as hard as the previous one.
Vowles therefore also emphasizes that one should expect “small steps” rather than a “big leap” forward from Williams. At the beginning of 2025, he had still said that 2026 would be the year in which there would be “really big opportunities” in Formula 1 “to make a difference”.
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Williams has obviously not taken this opportunity for now.
