James Vowles made a harsh statement about the reality faced by Williams, saying the team has suffered from 20 years of “lack of investment” in Formula 1.
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The 2026 season has been a disappointment for the Grove-based team. After finishing fifth in the 2025 Constructors’ Championship, they hoped to break out of the midfield pack with the regulation change.
However, they see the opposite scenario and have slipped to the bottom of the points table, and the director pointed out the team’s resource factor compared to rivals in F1. “We are not going to fix Williams in 12 months. That’s not going to happen. It’s 20 years of lack of investment,” he said.
“With the budget cap, which is one of the best rules we have created, what I am doing now is investing a large part of the resources allowed by the cap to fix problems that other teams don’t have. It should be no surprise to any of you that the top four teams pull away from the rest when there is a regulation change, as it overloads the whole system,” he continued.
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“You are also seeing the downside of the budget cap, when considering the accumulated impact of everything that happened in the previous 20 years. We won’t be able to solve all the accumulated problems in just one year. However, we will ensure that every decision made is the right one for our long-term success.”
“If I made all the right decisions just for the next year, aiming to save myself or save a driver, that would result in a small momentary improvement, followed by a setback. Every decision we make is the right one for this team thinking about the next five years, not just one year. This may mean we won’t reach the desired level of success in 2027, but it will ensure we are progressing over the next five years,” he concluded.
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