Williams makes 'nasty' claim despite best F1 start in nine years

James Vowles believes Williams still has some work to do to root out "nasty elements" which remain in its package, despite its strong start to the season. 

After nine races, Williams sits in fifth place in the constructors' championship with 54 points, its best start after nine events since 2016, with Alex Albon currently eighth in the drivers' standings, just six points behind Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes. 

No Williams driver has finished inside the top 10 in the standings since Valtteri Bottas was eighth in 2016, with Albon's 42 points half of Bottas' 84 across that campaign. 

Despite the huge leap forward in performance from the FW47 machine from its predecessor, Vowles has explained how some "nasty" traits remain, including in high-speed corners, as evidenced by a poor showing in the Spanish GP weekend.

"I'm proud of the progress the team is making, and obviously, having two world-class drivers helps a lot," Vowles told the media, including RacingNews365. 

"We've developed the car, and it has come alive. We've made some small mechanical improvements, so it is a good step in the right direction, but we haven't eliminated all of the nasty elements that are in our car."

Given the strong position of the team in the standings after its best start to a season since 2016, Vowles reiterated that 2026 was the main focus, no matter how good '25 is. 

"It'd be tough, that is the reality behind it, and we've been very candid that the '26 car was in the wind tunnel very early on," he explained when asked if the 2025 machine would be developed.

"The 2026 project is going well, we had to do that because we're in a different position, perhaps to most, where that clean sheet of paper – we're not carrying anything across at all – gives us an ability to do a full reset. 

"We can fix some things that perhaps we should have done a few years ago, but it's very difficult to do in that cycle; that's our reasoning behind it."