James Vowles has offered an explanation of Williams’ teething problems (Image: Getty)

Just as Formula 1’s sleeping giant looked to be stirring, along came what may prove to be another lullaby in the form of more pre-season woe. Once the dominant force on the grid, Williams are approaching 30 years without a title – the last was won in 1997 by Jacques Villeneuve.

The late, great Sir Frank’s historic team hit rock bottom only a few years ago, weighed down by lack of leadership, a toxic culture and facilities 20 years or more out of date. Though since James Vowles, once the anointed heir to Toto Wolff’s throne at Mercedes, abdicated his claim and took over, the progress has been obvious.

Williams looks like a cohesive team again, which produced a very fine car last year which, with British-Thai racer Alex Albon and former Ferrari star Carlos Sainz behind the wheel, achieved two podiums and a comfortable fifth place in the championship. But their hopes of further progress this year have been hampered by a familiar problem.

For the third time in the past seven seasons, Williams have suffered delays in their winter car development. In 2019 it caused them to miss part of the first pre-season test and, two years ago, the lack of a spare chassis forced them to race in Australia with one car and compromised their development all year. This time, Williams missed the entire first test, last month’s Barcelona shakedown.

Williams finally put their 2026 F1 car on track at Silverstone this week (Image: Williams F1 Team)

Vowles, who has worked so hard to get the highly dysfunctional outfit he inherited ticking again, was left tearing his hair out. “It clearly wasn’t our plan, and it’s incredibly painful,” he said of his team’s absence in Spain. In part, though, these are growing pains caused by Vowles’ vision of turning Williams into a modern F1 team again.

Planning permission has been approved for a major expansion of the team’s base in Grove, Oxfordshire, to finally create a facility that’s up to scratch. Even in their current digs, the 2026 car has been developed in a manner which was “not what we were doing two years ago”, as Williams try new things to chase performance.

And, to his credit, Vowles has never failed to shoulder the blame for their teething problems. “The car this year that we’ve built, just to put a number on it, is about three times more complicated than anything we have put through our business beforehand,” he said. “I’m incredibly happy the car is more complex, but I didn’t scale the business in the right way to achieve the output, clearly.”

He also insists this winter’s setbacks cannot be compared to the “chaos” of two years ago, adding: “There’s a world of difference from where we were. We’re not having to unwind a lot of what we’ve done. A lot of what structure we have I think is correct. But we’re in this halfway house where we’re using systems that are not quite fit for purpose.”

Williams put the FW48 on track at Silverstone on Wednesday and will be ready for next week’s Bahrain test, where they might discover just how much the delays will damage their season – if at all.