It has been a season to forget for Williams and you can tell that story in one statistic. After eight races in 2025, James Vowles’ crew had 54 points. After an Austrian Grand Prix which saw a DNF and 17th, Jimmy Consonants’ (thanks Threads) bunch have 11 and haven’t finished higher than eighth so far in 2026.

What’s going wrong?

They’re not using Excel to keep track of car upgrades, although they’ve switched to Atlassian’s JIRA¹ which… well, your mileage might vary. Vowles increasingly sounds like a struggling politician when he tries to debrief fans with what went wrong each particular weekend, and sounds like he’s one step away from offering an in-out referendum if only you vote for him again (ahem).

And despite their best driver lineup in recent years, sponsors all over the car and some fun innovations, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz seem to be having a competition on who can be the most disappointed with their team.

Let’s take Albon. He’s gone from 42 points this time last year to eight so far this time around. He had a DNS in Shanghai because of hydraulics and followed that up with a 20th in Suzuka. A point in Miami gave a glimmer of hope before logging just over 60 laps the entire Montreal weekend. That hope returned with an eighth in Monaco after starting 11th before a nightmare two races. 

In Barcelona, Albon was technically not classified, having to go into the pits to fix up his T-camera, and then in Austria, going out in Q1 again, saying that the team had made changes to his car without telling him, which feels utterly basic.

And it has been showing in his radio messages. Take this from Japan. “Yes, I complain for three races in a row that there’s something wrong, but I’m sure that it’s my driving style.”

So if he’s annoyed, what about the other side of the garage? Carlos Sainz was meant to be the race winner who would drag Williams if not to the Championship, but at least to respectability. He joined with a chip on his shoulder from Ferrari, and was the first driver to drive for Williams after winning a Grand Prix elsewhere since Felipe Massa, who joined Williams from Ferrari with a chip on his shoulder and… well, you get it.

Sainz was the final piece of the on-track puzzle, moving Williams on from the bad old days of one up and coming driver paired with anyone who could bring with them the GDP of a small island. But this season, the only good news for Sainz is that he leads the team with six points to Albon’s five and that it’s him who is being linked with a move elsewhere, not Albon.

But the year has not gone well either here. Three ninth places in Shanghai, Miami and Montreal makes up his half dozen while Monaco and Barcelona were non-descript disasters.

Then came Austria, and the consolation prize was that Sainz’s car did not erupt into fire! Unfortunately that was as good as it got as he ended the race with an engine failure down the start-finish straight and then accidentally got in the way of the Ferrari mechanics as they tried to pit their drivers.²

“It’s still not good enough. No pace really, as simple as that. We were expecting more coming into this weekend and it wasn't to be.” Carlos Sainz, talking to F1.

So with only Audi, Aston Martin and Cadillac below them, how can Williams push forward with Haas 10 points clear of them? Well, fire up the JIRA machine because there’s a small upgrade due to come at their home race of Silverstone and a roadmap for the rest of the year.

We’ve forgotten that Williams missed the pre-season testing in Barcelona, mainly because Aston have been that bad, but this season has been truly unacceptable for one of the sport’s great brands.

They are a true throwback in that racing is why they exist. They’re not looking to sell you a car or a can, Williams is pure racing. The team that bought you Damon Hill, Nigel Mansell, was Ayrton Senna’s final team, Alain Prost’s fourth Championship and countless other legends counts Pastor Maldonado as its most recent race winner. 

There has been a lot of commercial investment, with the car awash with logos of companies you’ve not even heard of. They’ve got a thinking partner (you’ll never sing that) and this week, they have been one of the few sports teams who realise that there is more to life than London by actually visiting places where a sandwich isn’t £10. 

This accessibility is what fans notice and appreciate. With the British Grand Prix coming out, the drafts are already being written about that celeb you don’t like and how dare they get an invite when they don’t know what happened at the 1991 edition of the race! (We’ve talked about this before). So for Williams to bring the FW48 to people is great. 

But even then, there’s an asterisk. They’ve got a “special” union flag inspired livery for the weekend, but calling it understated is overstating just how subtle it is. In a sport that lives for loud, throwing a few red, white and blue lines is going to be barely noticeable. As a counterpoint, maybe it’s nice not to have a flag on a car. Especially now during a World Cup, where I’m not sure if the England flag means Three Lions or something far more sinister.

But I digress, back to James Vowles, who is Nick Clegging his team to eighth at the moment. This should be the crucial year where it all comes together for Williams. If the investment is there, you’re being called a commercial powerhouse, and you have two capable drivers, then looking at the person at the top becomes ever more tempting if you’re finishing 17th. 

Vowles has been at Williams 3.5 years and has made some massive improvements to the team. They’re not the historic novelty trundling around at the back with a billionaire’s son there for a sky-high fee. This is a serious team in a sport they once ruled. But if this next package of upgrades doesn’t propel Williams forward, then the famous team’s next chapter won’t be written with consonants… or Vowles (sorry.)

1: We used JIRA at Twitter. One of the devs used to use “Problem Resolved. Will Not Fix” a lot.
2: This was meant to be an embed from Getty, but obviously it doesn’t work.

All the headlines in 2026 are video game references.

A Disc One Final Boss is where you might think you’ve completed the game, but really, you’re just getting started. One great example of this is from A Link to the Past, where winning the battle with Agahnim sends you to the Dark World for the second half of the game.

They don’t make them like that anymore.