Williams boss calls missed first test “incredibly painful”

• Williams pulled out of the first F1 pre-season test in Spain after build delays and an earlier failed crash test
• James Vowles said the decision came from pushing performance “under the new regulations” and protecting Bahrain, Melbourne and beyond
• The team say the car has now passed all impact tests and they expect to be ready for Bahrain on 11 to 13 February

Williams says it was “incredibly painful” to miss the first Formula 1 pre-season test this week after failing to get their new car ready in time.

Team principal James Vowles said the call to withdraw from the Barcelona running was tied to the team’s approach for the new rules cycle, describing it as “the result of our determination to push the limits of performance under the new regulations”.

“It clearly wasn’t our plan, and it’s incredibly painful,” Vowles said. “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’re doing.”

Vowles, who took over at Williams in 2023, has been leading Dorilton Capital’s attempt to lift the team back towards the front after years of underperformance and underinvestment. He described the car failing one of its mandatory crash tests before the withdrawal as “a blip in the grand scheme of things”.

He added that the car has now passed its impact testing, and said drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon “stand shoulder to shoulder with me”.

“They’re clearly, as I am, disappointed,” Vowles said. “They want to be out there testing the car, and whilst they’re in our driver and loop simulator in tandem now, to increase that programme, it isn’t the same.”

Vowles said the biggest issue was the factory struggling to meet the demand created by the build, calling it “more of an output than anything else, of pushing not just the boundaries of design but the boundaries of just simply how many components can be pushed through the factory in a very short space of time”.

He said: “The car we’ve built is about three times more complicated than anything we have put through our business beforehand.

“So, to put that in perspective, it means the amount of load going through our system is about three times what it used to be.

“And we started falling a little bit behind and late on parts. There are compromises you can make as a result of it.

“In addition to that, we have absolutely pushed the boundaries of what we’re doing in certain areas. And one of those is in certain corresponding tests that go with it.”

Despite missing Spain, Vowles said Williams are targeting the second pre season test in Bahrain on 11 to 13 February and explained why they chose not to force the Barcelona programme.

“We could have made Barcelona testing. Simple as that,” he said. “But in doing so, I would have to turn upside down the impact on spares, components, and updates across Bahrain, Melbourne, and beyond.

“And the evaluation of it was that for running in a cold, damp Barcelona, against doing a (rig) test, against the spare situation, and frankly, there was zero points for running in a shakedown test, we made the decision, and I stand by it, that the right thing to do is to make sure we’re turning up at Bahrain, correctly prepared, and prepared in Melbourne as well.”

Asked whether the car was significantly over the minimum weight limit, Vowles did not give a direct answer, saying it was not possible to respond to “murmurings in the media” because the only time the full picture becomes clear is when the car is assembled.

He also said he had “experts and specialists” working with Williams to improve factory operations.