{"id":796743,"date":"2026-07-13T03:39:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796743\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T03:39:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:39:24","slug":"f1-news-james-vowles-orders-williams-review-after-development-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796743\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: James Vowles orders Williams review after development concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Williams
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCarlos Sainz on track during the Formula 1 British Grand Prix. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Grove team endured another disappointing weekend at Silverstone, where its latest upgrades failed to deliver the expected improvement.<\/p>\n

It continued a downward trend for Williams in 2026, with the team scoring only 11 points after nine races compared to 54 at the same stage of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

The team sits eighth in the constructors\u2019 championship heading into Belgium.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the latest episode of The Vowles Verdict, the Williams chief admitted the team was not adding performance to its car quickly enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say right now what\u2019s clear is our rate of bringing performance to the car \u2013 which is a little bit nuanced in how I mean that \u2013 is not at the rate required in order for us to move forward,\u201d Vowles said.<\/p>\n

Williams introduced a new front wing at the British Grand Prix after bringing forward an upgrade originally planned for Spa-Francorchamps.<\/p>\n

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However, the package failed to produce the improvement indicated by the team\u2019s wind tunnel and simulator work.<\/p>\n

Vowles said Williams would now examine its development across the entire opening phase of the season rather than concentrating solely on its Silverstone performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cStep one of all of that is to make sure that we take time to fully understand not just what we\u2019ve done in Silverstone, but really what we\u2019ve done across the entire season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow quickly we evaluate that, and typically I would expect that to be done within the next two weeks, then defines what we do in Spa, what we do in Budapest, what we do across the remainder of the season and what we do going into next year at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz also voiced concerns after the British Grand Prix, having climbed into the top 10 on the opening lap before slipping backwards as Williams struggled against its midfield rivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cConcerning, frustrating because it starts to be a bad trend this year that we don\u2019t seem to really find a lot of lap time when the upgrades are coming,\u201d Sainz told media after the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to have a good sit-down now this week and analyse what\u2019s happening because unfortunately, we\u2019ve shed a lot of weight out of the car by now.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the gap to the front keeps increasing and the gap to the leader of the midfield keeps increasing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we don\u2019t seem to be finding the lap time that we expected in the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams began the season with a significantly overweight car, but reducing that deficit has not delivered the performance gain Sainz expected.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard said the team was further from the pace at Silverstone than it had been with a heavier car earlier in the campaign, leaving Williams needing to determine where aerodynamic performance was being lost.<\/p>\n

Vowles said the review would separate the areas Williams understands from the unresolved problems limiting its progress before the team returns at Spa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy going there because it is a challenge that\u2019s unlike most of the other circuits on the calendar,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s an opportunity for us to reset and come back swinging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Free Practice 1 for the Belgian Grand Prix gets underway on Friday at 9:30pm AEST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Sainz on track during the Formula 1 British Grand Prix. Image: XPB Images The Grove team endured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796744,"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-796743","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\/796743","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=796743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}