![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768365730_454_poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\nBritish Formula 1 team Williams has made progress but \u201cit\u2019s not realistic\u201d to target the title in 2026 or 2027, its principal James Vowles told AFP in the build-up to a new season marked by an overhaul of the technical regulations.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old, who took over at Williams after 12 years as a strategy guru with Mercedes, said he was determined that the team should do at least as well as their fifth place in the constructors\u2019 standings in 2025, their joint-best finish in 10 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur expectation is 2025 set the baseline. P5 is where I want us to be at our base, and we nudge forward from there,\u201d Vowles told AFP.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s exponentially harder, in my experience, being P4, and exponentially harder being P3, P2, P1.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think with what you can see at the moment, the journey to P2, P1 is simply not on the cards for 2026. We have work to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut do I expect that, as a baseline, we perform at least where we were last year? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1 ><\/a><\/p>\n Williams won the last of their nine constructors\u2019 titles in 1997 when Jacques Villeneuve also won the drivers\u2019 world championship.<\/p>\n For the last 20 years, apart from two seasons when Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas lifted them to third, they have struggled to make the top five.<\/p>\n This season they again have Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon at the wheel, with a Mercedes engine powering them, and Vowles is confident that the long-term planning is there to return to the glory days.<\/p>\n \u201cAm I confident we as a business have made a step forward from 2025 to 2026 in the way we\u2019re working? Absolutely,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s some elements of the car that are really quite impressive. Not all of it, but elements of it.<\/p>\n \u201cAre we at championship level today? No. But I\u2019m confident the way we are going about this will allow us to catch up in the time frame.<\/p>\n \u201cI will always invest in our future. One of the great things about the cost cap is you are constrained.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can either think about today, next race, or you can think about a year down the line. It\u2019s the same money. You\u2019ve got to spend it wisely in that regard.<\/p>\n \u201cThe decisions that we made in 2025 were the right ones to make sure we forward invest in this team.<\/p>\n \u201cWe moved a lot of our team onto this car. But what you don\u2019t do is print it early.\u201d<\/p>\n