{"id":65044,"date":"2026-02-04T12:12:55","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T12:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/?p=65044"},"modified":"2026-02-04T12:12:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T12:12:55","slug":"vowles-very-confident-williams-can-limit-losses-from-missed-f1-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/vowles-very-confident-williams-can-limit-losses-from-missed-f1-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Vowles &#8220;very confident&#8221; Williams can limit losses from missed F1 test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Williams boss James Vowles remains &#8220;very confident&#8221; the team will limit any losses from missing last week&#8217;s pre-season shakedown.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Grove-based outfit was the only one not to run in Barcelona, leaving them just six days in Bahrain later this month ahead of Formula 1&#8217;s opening race in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Williams has since revealed its livery for the upcoming season, but questions have remained about potential failed crash tests and weight issues.<\/p>\n<p>Vowles has dismissed them, however, claiming that all tests have been passed and that the team is in a good place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would have much preferred to be in Barcelona, that was the goal, that was what we intended. We did not achieve it,&#8221; he admitted in a media session.<\/p>\n<h4>Also Read:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/williams-skip-barcelona-test-but-still-a-lot-to-look-forward-to\/\">Williams insists there&#8217;s &#8220;a lot to look forward to&#8221; despite missed test<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cHowever, what we did, in terms of a week&#8217;s worth of VTT (Virtual Track Testing), was successful, and what we\u2019ve been doing with both Carlos [Sainz] and Alex [Albon] whilst everyone else was in Barcelona.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn addition, we are fortunate that Mercedes has sufficient runners that there\u2019s quite a bit of information coming back on both the gearbox and the power unit that enables us to get ahead when we come to Bahrain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhich means, I do not believe with six days testing, we\u2019ll be on the back foot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA little bit of that\u2019s fortune because the power unit is reliable, the gearbox is reliable, and the VTT testing flushed out a lot of the demons that are buried in the car.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Admiring the FW48 livery from every angle \ud83d\udd25 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zWlQ48kRN5\">pic.twitter.com\/zWlQ48kRN5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Atlassian Williams F1 Team (@WilliamsF1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WilliamsF1\/status\/2018686410614821302?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 3, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Asked where Williams is behind, Vowles replied: \u201cWhat\u2019s missing is there\u2019s a lot of knowledge for the drivers to inherently perfect what\u2019s going on on track.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s missing is a correlation for where the aerodynamics really are. Track data is the only way of establishing that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo there is a loss, but with six days of testing with our driver in-loop simulator that we invested in a state-of-the-art, I\u2019m very confident that we are able to mitigate a lot of those.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Williams &#8220;pushing the boundaries&#8221;<\/h4>\n<p>Vowles also reiterated that Williams&#8217; current issues were not a sign of decline at the historic team, but instead part of its pursuit of growth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt clearly wasn\u2019t our plan, and it\u2019s incredibly painful, but I do want it to be acknowledged as the result of our determination to push the limits of performance under the new regulations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are transforming here in Williams, and fast. One of the tasks that has been on my shoulders for a few years is making sure we transform this business at the absolute maximum rate possible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd in my experience, the only way you achieve that is by pushing the boundaries and limits hard and aggressively and finding your limitations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no point being just underneath the curve or underneath the curve. If you want to transform at speed, you need to find the pain points and put them right very quickly, which is exactly what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m confident in our decision to miss Barcelona, and I\u2019m confident it was the right one to prepare for the first test in Bahrain and Melbourne.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Williams boss James Vowles remains &#8220;very confident&#8221; the team will limit any losses from missing last week&#8217;s pre-season shakedown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[341,295,520,512],"class_list":{"0":"post-65044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-james-vowles","11":"tag-williams"},"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65046,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65044\/revisions\/65046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}