Vowles outlines plan to unlock performance after opening rounds

Speaking on the latest episode of The Vowles Verdict, James Vowles explained the development plan aimed at unlocking more performance

Published

12 MAR 2026

Est. reading time

2 min

Team Principal James Vowles says the Atlassian Williams F1 Team is already working through an “aggressive programme” of changes as the team looks to extract greater performance from the FW48 following the opening round of the season.

Answering questions on the latest episode of The Vowles Verdict, presented by Kraken, James explained that with the longer-term upgrades still in development, the immediate focus is on maximising what’s already available.

“It’s an aggressive programme that’s in front of us over the next few races in order to achieve that,” he said. “But for now, it’s about making sure we get everything we can out of it and learn as much as possible for the future.”

With the season still in its early stages, the team is already identifying where improvements can be made in both the short and medium term.

“The bulk of the changes of performance we have are more what I put in the medium-term bracket,” James continued. “There are various performance upgrades, both aerodynamic and also in mass, that will come to the car – and those simply aren’t going to be available for Shanghai.”

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“Already for Shanghai we can see a different way of using the car,” he explained. “First and foremost, it’s a very different track. It’s less energy starved, and it has a very different turn 1 that requires a lot of combined load, which puts the car into a different window.”

Finding the right balance proved a challenge for the team in Melbourne, something they are keen to address immediately.

“We didn’t have the best balance in Australia,” JV admitted. “It was a very narrow balance window, which meant the drivers were quite cornered in medium and high-speed corners against what they would ideally want.”

Energy management, another key learning for this new regulation set from Melbourne, is also an area the team is refining heading into China.

“There’s quite a bit that we learned from Melbourne that we’ll take forward into Shanghai and hopefully use for a better way of exploiting energy,” James added. “It’s not as energy starved, but even so the optimum is still going to be very peaky, and it’s about making sure we get there.”

Watch The Vowles Verdict, presented by Kraken

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