James Vowles says ‘big steps’ in speed at Williams now won’t happen until 2026

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Williams team principal James Vowles has admitted that the team are only likely to make their next ‘big steps’ forward ahead of the 2026 season.

It’s well known that Formula 1 will see a major regulation change at the end of the 2025 campaign that could shake up the grid and Red Bull’s dominance.

Speaking to Autosport, while saying that he’s happy with the team’s current work, James Vowles believes the team need to be patient before challenging at the front of the grid once again.

Williams made some real progress during 2023, lifting themselves off the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship.

It was only a few years ago that Robert Kubica admitted a return to the team in 2019 was a mistake.

He was stuck at the back of the grid with George Russell and scoring points was a distant dream rather than the reality.

However, Alex Albon showed last year that Williams are now in a position to challenge for points more often than not.

Expectations will be growing on Logan Sargeant to narrow the gap to his teammate after a questionable rookie season.

However, Vowles isn’t expecting Williams to show a huge amount of progress until 2026.

It suggests the team might be already focusing on their future car as opposed to their machinery heading into 2024 and 2025.

Even towards the end of last season, it was clear that AlphaTauri had closed the gap and potentially overtaken them in terms of raw pace.

Vowles makes Williams ‘big step’ claim for 2026

Speaking about the upcoming campaign, Vowles said: “I’m happy with the work we’re doing, but I bet you if you interview everyone up and down the grid they’ll go: ‘I’m happy with the work we’re doing.’

“That normally tells you you’re going to maybe squeak forward a little bit, but that’s about it.

“The big steps really come with regulation change. 2026 will be the first opportunity for us to properly step forward.”

Williams had some good news this month after extending their deal with Mercedes to use their power units.

The consistency will give Vowles confidence going into 2026 that Williams will at least have a strong engine underneath the car.

It’ll be interesting to see what the driver line-up will be in a few years.

Albon looks unlikely to stick around for that long, while Sargeant will need to up his game significantly to make it to 2025, let alone 2026.