Williams's race one upgrade was two months late

Williams has been left with a backlog of performance upgrades after winter troubles meant its planned Australian Grand Prix package has only just made it onto its Formula 1 car.

The scale of the impact of its disrupted start to 2026 became clear in Miami when it was revealed that the major overhaul that appeared on the FW48 was what it had originally intended to bring to the season opener in Melbourne.

As team principal James Vowles explained, failed crash tests that put Williams on the back foot to be ready for the start of the season prompted it to abandon its original-specification plan for the campaign.

That instead meant pulling together an interim solution, albeit one that had weight compromises, and it has taken until now to start getting things back on track.

Speaking to The Race about Williams's early-season decisions, Vowles said: "As we started to fall further and further behind, frankly we just needed to get a car together. So we had to forego this [Miami] update, which was the Melbourne update.

"It's often difficult to fully understand why we couldn't just turn it around. But at the point where you start to fall late, by a few weeks, things catastrophically fall apart.

"You've got to basically create a research point - and this last five weeks has been that - to bring the performance with sufficient quantities and spares that we can make a step forward.

"It would have been a very different start of the season [if the Miami-spec car had made it to Melbourne]. The car still would have been heavy, but there is performance in it.

"Now though there's a backlog of performance items that we have to deliver in a timely fashion."

'Nowhere near' but 'directionally correct'

The Miami package did deliver a clear step in performance, as Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon secured a double-points finish, and Williams is now ready to unleash a series of steps that it hopes can further boost its position in the midfield.

Vowles explained that there will be further development parts for the next race in Canada and then a "larger step" at the Monaco GP.

"There'll then be little dribs and drabs that most people won't see," he added. "And then you'll get to the odd event every four races, where there'll be something tangible."

But while feeling that progress is finally being made, Vowles accepted that Williams has not met the high expectations it set for itself in 2026.

"We're not fools," he said. "We're nowhere near where we want to be. Alpine is still, at this point, a few tenths ahead of us, and that midfield battle is very, very tight.

"But it's directionally correct. And what I'm pleased with is it's not one output, which is Miami. There's a scope of work that goes across pretty much most races, all the way up until post the August break, that will bring performance.

"I have confidence that we'll deliver on that. It's a shame where we started. But I think what it shows me is we're not the same team that we used to be. We're able to dig ourselves out and bring ourselves back to the front."

A game of patience

The step forward Williams made in Miami has been encouraging in the first instance, as the double-points finish highlighted that the team has planted itself firmly in the midfield.

And with it clear that major gains are still to come from reducing weight, there appears to be potential for Williams to close in on Alpine - a fellow Mercedes customer squad, and the clear midfield benchmark right now.

Sainz viewed Miami as something of a reset of ambitions for Williams and a performance that it now needs to build upon.

"We know we still have a lot of weight to shed off the car, so when you look at that then it’s a positive," he said.

"The team has done a great effort over the last few weeks to bring this and it shows that when you do things right, things start to come away a bit better.

"But to Alpine there's still a big gap and to the frontrunners, I cannot even tell you. So we need to put our heads down and from here make this the new baseline and start improving."

Sainz was realistic though that it may take until the closing stages of the year before Williams is where it thinks it can be.

"It's going to take some months to finish the turnaround," he said. "I think we're going to need to get to the last third of the season to see a proper turnaround. But at least the upgrade worked.

"The weight of the car came a bit off but we still know there's a bit to go. We have a few bits and pieces coming for the next couple of races. So we're going to keep the positives and make sure we keep focusing on [improving] the negatives."