Eyes on 2027 as team enters final five rounds
James Vowles, Matt Harman and Michael Manning reflect on a tough United States GP and look ahead to the altitude challenge of Mexico City
Published
30 OCT 2026
Est. reading time
3 min
Austin proved a difficult weekend for Atlassian Williams F1 Team, and Team Principal James Vowles was clear that the remaining rounds will serve a dual purpose.
“A tough weekend in Austin. We were simply not quick enough,” he shared on the latest episode of The Vowles Verdict, presented by Kraken,. “A lot of what we’ve been doing, the chassis for example, is about setting ourselves up for success next year. It’s disappointing to do that, but that’s the reality of how far we were set back early on in the year.
Upgrade delivering, but the field keeps moving
Matt Harman, Technical Director - Engineering, confirmed the upgrade introduced in Baku is performing as expected.
“One example, one of many but a very clear one, is the chassis: the car is now on the weight limit,” said Harman. “That’s really important for us as a team in terms of innovation and the way we engineer the car. On top of that, we also had an aerodynamic gain, and that has proven to be effective.”
With the field continuing to develop at pace, however, gains relative to the competition have been hard to come by. Matching that development rate next year is now the target, with innovation at its core.
“We’re looking at innovations for next year’s race car,” Harman added. “We’re trying to make sure we understand the foundations where we fell short on the FW48.”
Mapping the weaknesses in Austin
FP1 in Austin was used for aerodynamic testing to validate and correlate where the car stands now, and to address the characteristics that hold it back at tracks like the Circuit of the Americas.
“Some circuits we go to don’t suit our car’s characteristics, and Texas is one of those,” said Harman. “We knew that going in, so in FP1 we decided to run some aerodynamic tests with both drivers to understand where the FW48 is now and where we’re going to be with next year’s car. It’s really important that we validate and correlate.”
“We were evaluating how the car should or may run next year in various aerodynamic configurations,” JV added. “It’s not so much that we physically changed the floor; it was more about how we operated within the setup boundaries of that car for 2027.”
Mexico: one of the season’s biggest engineering challenges
Next up is Mexico City, where Michael Manning, Chief Engineer - Trackside Engineering, outlined the demands of racing at altitude.
“Mexico is the highest-altitude race of the year, at over 2,200m, so it presents some clear challenges,” he explained. “The first is the power unit: we’re effectively starving the engine of oxygen. The second is that the thin air results in a lot less downforce, even though we run pretty much the highest downforce of the season.
“The third, and most important for reliability, is cooling. You’ll see every team open up its bodywork to try to keep the power unit cool. But probably the most critical is cooling the brakes. Mexico is pretty difficult on the brakes, with the reduced cooling and the very long straight into the hard stop at Turn 1. It’s one of the toughest of the season.”
With five rounds remaining, the focus is firmly on improving our baseline performance for 2027.
“Any tests, for example what you may have seen us do in Austin on Friday, are all work that gives us a much better understanding for 2027,” Vowles concluded. “We’ll continue to do that and put our focus on next year, whilst trying to do the maximum we can with the remaining five races.”
Earn WClub points
Latest
Related Tags
Trending
© 2026 The Williams Group, under licence to Williams IP Holdings LLC
Williams Grand Prix Engineering Services LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with company registration number OC456938 and whose registered address is at Station Road, Grove, Wantage, Oxfordshire, OX12 0DQ.
Powered By