{"id":444419,"date":"2026-01-29T04:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T04:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444419\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T04:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T04:57:16","slug":"williams-boss-defends-incredibly-painful-f1-shakedown-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444419\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams boss defends \u2018incredibly painful\u2019 F1 shakedown decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/XPB_1388982_HiRes.jpg\" alt=\"Williams boss defends \u2018incredibly painful\u2019 F1 shakedown decision\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Vowles has defended Williams\u2019 choice not to run at the Barcelona shakedown. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n<p>The Williams team principal confirmed the team\u2019s 2026 car has now passed all mandatory crash tests and will be ready to run when official testing begins on February 11, after opting not to use any of its permitted days in Spain.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking during the Barcelona week, Vowles admitted the absence was far from ideal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[It] clearly wasn\u2019t our plan, and it\u2019s incredibly painful,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I do want it to be acknowledged, it\u2019s the result of our determination to push the limits of performance under the new regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vowles explained that the scope of the 2026 overhaul has stretched the team\u2019s production processes further than ever before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe car this year that we\u2019ve built is about three times more complicated than anything we have put through our business beforehand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt means the amount of load going through our system is about three times what it used to be. And we started falling a little bit behind and late on parts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He rejected suggestions that the delays point to deeper problems, confirming the FW48 had cleared its crash testing and denying that weight will be a significant concern.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m pleased to say that we\u2019ve passed all necessary tests and we\u2019re ready to run in Bahrain,\u201d Vowles said, adding that Williams will complete a 200km filming day ahead of the test.<\/p>\n<p>While acknowledging the team <a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/f1-news-2026-williams-private-test-barcelona-spain-miss-absent-reasaon-why-update\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">could have made it to Barcelona<\/a>, Vowles said the knock-on effect would have been too damaging.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn terms of Barcelona, we could have made Barcelona testing \u2013 simple as that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut in doing so, I would have to turn upside down the impact on spares, components and updates across Bahrain, Melbourne and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe evaluation of it was that for running in a cold, damp Barcelona, against doing a VTT [Virtual Track Test], against the spare situation, then frankly, there was zero points for running in a shutdown test.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made the decision, and I stand by it, that the right thing to do is to make sure we\u2019re turning up in Bahrain correctly prepared, and prepared for Melbourne as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/285249\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/285249.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Vowles has defended Williams\u2019 choice not to run at the Barcelona shakedown. Image: XPB Images The Williams&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,21764,85,819],"class_list":["post-444419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-james-vowles","tag-sports","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}