James Vowles: 'It's about setting the foundations right for 2026'

Team Principal James Vowles has outlined Atlassian Williams Racing’s plans to improve upon our performance in Mexico, while maximising learnings from the season’s final four races.

Neither Alex Albon or Carlos Sainz were able to put points on the board at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, with the duo placing P12 and P17, respectively.

And the team will be making changes as a result, to try and attain a better outcome at the São Paulo GP next weekend.

James explained his approach on the latest episode of The Vowles Verdict, presented by Kraken, saying:

“What are we doing going forward, which is the main point behind this: quite a revision with how we're going to work with setup with Alex.

“I think there's a good direction that we [can] establish post-Mexico, as a result of that.

“With Carlos, the pace has absolutely been there, [so] it’s now about capitalising on that and making sure we execute cleanly over these next few races.”

The 46-year-old then turned his focus to the campaign’s remaining races more broadly, and explained how those Grands Prix are key for laying down groundwork ahead of next season.

“For me, it's about setting the foundations right for 2026,” he said.

“We need to make sure that our communications, our operations, the way that we're really extracting performance from the car trackside – and points – is an improvement over where we are before, and it gives us an opportunity across these four races to do exactly that.

“Of course, we're still fighting for fifth in the Championship, but that will come as long as we're delivering on car performance.

“So, first and foremost, what I'm looking for [during] the Sprint Race weekend in Brazil is clean execution across, perhaps, what's going to be difficult conditions – and making sure we walk away with the maximum points the car can, [with] two drivers in that position [who] are fighting for points.

“Las Vegas, I think, will be a very good event for us, and that's all about maximising the potential of the car.

“Going through into Qatar, where I think, actually, we could struggle a little bit more – but that's a good learning lesson.

“We have to be competitive at tracks like that going forward into 2026, so we'll try a different set up direction to achieve it.

“And then finally into Abu Dhabi, where I think you'll find the field is probably the closest it's ever been all year – and again, that's about clean execution, down to the millisecond.”

Find out more of James’ post-Mexico City GP thoughts by watching the latest edition of The Vowles Verdict, presented by Kraken.