2026 Atlassian Williams F1 Team

[dren]

The alarm bells are ringing, slowly losing any hope of a good 2026 campaign. Fighting for occasional podiums and closing gap to top 4 is out of the equation. The long run pace is atrocious even Cadillac seem to be quicker. Alpine is out of reach forget Merc and Mclaren who are second a lap quicker. I know it only testing but the signs are not positive based on race sims. Car is definitely heavy and cumbersome.

Maybe it is heavy with fuel?

[McMika98]

Everyone is running with fuel. Race sims need full tank.

[JPower]

The alarm bells are ringing, slowly losing any hope of a good 2026 campaign. Fighting for occasional podiums and closing gap to top 4 is out of the equation. The long run pace is atrocious even Cadillac seem to be quicker. Alpine is out of reach forget Merc and Mclaren who are second a lap quicker. I know it only testing but the signs are not positive based on race sims. Car is definitely heavy and cumbersome.

In a 24 race season the bolded is hilarious.

The car very likely is overweight. It's also likely their testing program and setup knowledge is behind other teams as well. But to say losing hope? Stop it.

[AR3-GP]

Carlos Miquel: "They're saying the Williams will be 1.5 - 2 seconds off the pace"

"They wanted to bring a big aerodynamic upgrade to Australia, but they won't have it until the 4th-5th race due to the delays they're dragging along with".

Antonio Lobato: "The Williams failed the 'crash test' on 5 occasions. It has 25-30kg of excess weight. That's not going to be fixed in the short term and aerodynamically it's very 'basic'".

[SiLo]

Wtf have they been doing? Were they really that badly run that it takes years to fix things?

Seems crazy to me that they focused so hard on this test and have missed by miles.

[JPower]

Given the times in testing, all of that makes sense. Seems like the main issues won't be fixed until they have a new chassis in place. Disappointing but fixable.

[Francesc]

So an upgrade planned for Melbourne will come 5 weeks later than originally intended. Other teams will have already introduced their second update by then. That means Williams will be on the back foot the whole season. Terrible.

[continuum16]

2/3 of the way through the pre-season and Williams is still the most confusing team to me. They said they spent all this time on 2026 over the past 18 months, and still missed the first test. With them showing up late plus a recent reputation (in both testing and race weekends) of reliability problems, I would have expected a lot of stoppages in Bahrain week 1, but still a fairly striking and developed car. But then again I am surprised by a car that is seemingly very reliable, but not as technically intriguing/visually striking as many rivals. Basically, the opposite of what I expected.

Obviously visual distinctiveness/complexity does not correlate to speed. See the FW41, for example. And it's not like the 2026 car is devoid of any and all innovation. It looks competent enough in terms of details to the naked eye. But still I am puzzled. And now they're not just a week or two behind but five races? That is months of development time. I don't know what the hell is going on anymore. I hope for the team's sake that at least the reliability will continue in the short-to-medium term and allow them to score some decent points and/or learn a lot in testing this week.

[SB15]

So an upgrade planned for Melbourne will come 5 weeks later than originally intended. Other teams will have already introduced their second update by then. That means Williams will be on the back foot the whole season. Terrible.

Let's hope they have the right concept as well, because then they'll REALLy be on the back foot!

[AR3-GP]

I don't like when teams say they are sacrificing one season for another. It's rarely that simple and creates a false expectation.

[Emag]

I don't like when teams say they are sacrificing one season for another. It's rarely that simple and creates a false expectation.

It kind of makes a little bit of sense for regulation changes to be honest, so it's better for a midfield team to probably just focus on the next car more. I agree though, it's not really a black or white thing. Even teams which bring updates late into the season have the capacity to work on parallel, so it's not like they're doing nothing until the season ends. The real compromise only happens if you start using your wind tunnel hours for the old car instead of the new one, which I doubt Williams did last year.

It's honestly quite baffling how badly they're starting this season. These are issues I would expect a team like Cadillac to have (not even Audi, because they were Sauber before, it's not completely brand new). It feels like they have been unable to "lock" on a concept and switched various times in development. Or maybe there's a catastrophic manufacturing problem that has caused multiple delays. The fact that the car has failed to pass the crash test so many times is bizarre as well.

[AR3-GP]

I don't like when teams say they are sacrificing one season for another. It's rarely that simple and creates a false expectation.

It kind of makes a little bit of sense for regulation changes to be honest, so it's better for a midfield team to probably just focus on the next car more. I agree though, it's not really a black or white thing. Even teams which bring updates late into the season have the capacity to work on parallel, so it's not like they're doing nothing until the season ends. The real compromise only happens if you start using your wind tunnel hours for the old car instead of the new one, which I doubt Williams did last year.

It's honestly quite baffling how badly they're starting this season. These are issues I would expect a team like Cadillac to have (not even Audi, because they were Sauber before, it's not completely brand new). It feels like they have been unable to "lock" on a concept and switched various times in development. Or maybe there's a catastrophic manufacturing problem that has caused multiple delays. The fact that the car has failed to pass the crash test so many times is bizarre as well.

I mean that even if you start early, don't promote it. It doesn't benefit anyone to make a big deal about how you're sacrificing one year for the next. People have massive expectations for Williams as a result. Merc engine, great drivers, they need to actually fight for podiums. James has become a politician now. Good with words, but at some point the voters will revolt.

[PlatinumZealot]

How bad they start the season doesn't matter for a team like Williams; it's how well they finish!

[AR3-GP]

iirc, Sainz's contract runs to the end of 2026. I expect him to exit if Williams is at the back of the midfield.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

iirc, Sainz's contract runs to the end of 2026. I expect him to exit if Williams is at the back of the midfield.

Exit to where? We don't even know is he better driver than Albon. Before he got beaten by Albon, Merc and Red Bull even didn't want him.