Williams is not alone in racing “evolution” of last year’s chassis this season

Williams team principal James Vowles has confirmed both his drivers are racing updated versions of last year’s car.

He clarified the team’s approach to the season following speculation Carlos Sainz Jnr was out-performed by his team mate in the opening races because he alone was driving an older-specification car.

Williams often ran its cars in different specifications last year as a result of the significant amount of damage it incurred over the season. However Vowles insisted there is no difference between the hardware Sainz and Alexander Albon are using. “Both drivers are using exactly the same thing, an evolution of the ’24 chassis,” he said.

“It’s the same chassis, the same front wings, the same gearboxes,” Vowles explained in a video released by the team. “Everything is of the same specification and standard.”

Vowles said the team approached the season this way in order to shift more resources to its work on next year’s car, as F1 will introduce drastically revised technical regulations for 2026.

“Both drivers are running an evolution of last year’s chassis,” he explained. “It’s evolved exactly the same way, but we always intended to go through this sequence of regulations, the last year of the [current] regulations, making sure that we are effectively evolving last year’s chassis while we’re redesigning from scratch.

“That’s really important because it allows us to put our eggs in an investment basket of 2026 and beyond. It’s not a financial question, it’s time resource. We’re all up against the cost cap, but it allows us to re-optimise and make sure that we’re getting everything for ’26 we can out of it.”

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Williams finished ninth in the championship with last year’s car but Vowles said they “knew there was quite a bit of potential within the chassis.” After the first two rounds of the new season they are tied for fourth place with Ferrari on 17 points.

“You can see we’ve moved up the field and I think there’s more performance to come from the package we have at the moment,” said Vowles.

As this year’s technical regulations are little changed from last season, Vowles believes the majority of teams have done the same as Williams.

“I think a number of teams on the grid have done something quite similar to what we’ve done,” he said. “Not all, but most will have done.”

Sainz joined Williams from Ferrari this year and has repeatedly said it will take him a few races to learn how to get the most out of his new car. However Vowles said he is encouraged that both drivers make similar comments about how Williams can improve their chassis.

“One interesting point of both Alex and Carlos is their feedback is very mirrored, so where we have weaknesses and where we have strengths, both are very confident on that,” he said. “And actually it has resulted in many of what we call the [in-car] tools – so the differential, the engine braking – all being very similar between both cars because their requirement for balance, the requirement for how they drive is very, very similar.

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“Perhaps more important than that, there’s some characteristics we still have that are perhaps not as good as what Carlos is used to from his previous days. That’s what we’ve got to be actively working on to make sure that we’re really digging deep and finding every bit of performance available, both in ’25 and ’26.

“But as two individuals, given that every human in the world is different, they’re incredibly aligned on what they need from the car.”

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