F1 testing: James Vowles hails ‘strong’ start for Williams

Formula 1’s second round of pre-season testing is underway at Bahrain International Circuit.

And Williams Team Principal James Vowles hailed the “strong” start for the team at the end of the first day.

Carlos Sainz Jr. took the morning shift for Williams, pumping in 77 laps in the team’s 2026 challenger, the FW48. Alexander Albon handled duties in the afternoon, adding another 68 laps to the total.

All told, Williams completed the most laps of any team on the first day, with their 145 laps leading the way.

After the session in the team’s media report, Vowles noted the mileage that Sainz and Albon covered on the first day.

“A strong day for us in terms of getting the mileage under our belts. Our intent all the way through was just making sure we did the mileage required to learn and understand about the chassis, the power unit, and to start flushing gremlins out of the system,” said Vowles. “There will be a lot of them, and these next three days are all about getting a good foundation to work from, and we can then build performance from there. In terms of the car, what I can say is there’s no vices to it, there’s nothing particularly poor, but clearly we have to dig into the details.”

Williams certainly needed a performance like today’s given the fact they missed the previous “Barcelona Shakedown,” the private testing session held in January. The team made what Vowles called “one of the hardest” to skip the private session after production delays.

In terms of lap times, Albon finished tenth on the timing sheets, while Sainz was down in P13:

Vowles also noted what he called an “interesting element” to the session on Wednesday.

The wind. 

“One interesting element we’ve experienced today is that the wind is completely different to what we’ve had any other time that we’ve been here,” added Vowles. “It’s an easterly, south-easterly wind which causes us a little bit of trouble, especially into turn 1 and turn 10. Otherwise, the drivers’ comments so far are net positive. The balance doesn’t feel as though it’s too far off, and that’s without any setup work whatsoever, so it gives us a good baseline to start with going into tomorrow.”

The second day of testing comes tomorrow, and we’ll get another chance to see Williams, and the entire grid, in action.