Williams Formula 1 team principal James Vowles believes the Grove outfit is demonstrating clear progress relative to its midfield rivals, despite a bittersweet 2026 Canadian Grand Prix.
Following an encouraging performance boost at the Miami Grand Prix earlier this month, Williams arrived at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve hoping to capitalise on its recent upgrades. While the underlying pace of the FW48 had clearly improved, Sunday’s race execution fell short.
Carlos Sainz found his afternoon compromised by strategy and ultimately finished ninth, while Alex Albon’s race ended after a collision with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
“It’s great to see that across Miami and Canada, we’ve added performance successfully, and while we’re not where we want to be by any stretch of the imagination, we are able now to score points in these events when they’re available to us,” Vowles explained in a post-race video shared on the official Williams accounts.
“We didn’t get it all right today. There’s some decisions we clearly would have made differently with Carlos. And with Alex, no fault of his own, he absolutely had a point-scoring car and was in a position to do so before he was taken out in the race.
“Most important to me, though, is that we are demonstrating this progress to the field and making our way forward. Hasn’t been the start of the year that we wanted. We’ve still got a big point deficit relative to Alpine, and in this circumstance, VCARB as well. But we are moving forward.
“Coming on to Monaco, I think the car, again, should have a small step of performance, and it should be a track that we again have an opportunity to put our mark on it and see if we can be fighting in that top 10 position, obviously more qualifying race than these last two.
“Across the next six months, we have a really good, strong development that will bring performance to the track most weekends, or to keep developing in that way and make sure we’re clawing our way back into a regular point-scoring position.”
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