Williams offer unusual 'plane' metaphor after unexpected F1 struggle

Williams boss James Vowles has explained how the team is "flying the plane and rebuilding it at the same time" following the team's tough start to 2026.

The FW47 machine was initially late to pre-season testing and did not take part in the Barcelona shakedown, and has proven to be considerably overweight, thus impacting performance.

Vowles has previously spoken about how the team simply cannot reduce the weight in an instance owing to the cost cap, with the weight-shedding phased over a number of grands prix. 

Williams is due its next big upgrade at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in September. 

Since assuming control of the team, Vowles has tried to instil a new culture and ways of working, as he spoke at length about how "three weeks" made a crucial difference for the team in falling behind schedule. 

"We have to, as a business, prove to ourselves that we can do the engineering to the right level of quality, and build a car to that level of quality in the season; it is effectively the equivalent of flying the plane and rebuilding it at the same time," Vowles told media, including RacingNews365.

"We have to prove to ourselves that we have changed from where we were three years ago, and we didn't have the process systems, the underlying structure behind it.

"I know what efficient organisations look like, and even today, we are struggling to do a lot of what the others can do at this point, and that is on us to fix. We just have to do it at the same time as moving forward.

"The first year we did a plan was effectively last year, and you have to change people, typically 24 months before you can get them into the building, if not three years.

"We could not attract the best in class three years ago, and people need to see that you are making progress and making fundamental changes to your ways of working is not something you do overnight. 

"Were [the problems] to the extent I predicted? No. I thought we'd be able to produce a car slightly overweight, but roughly speaking, on time, but not by any means the benchmark. 

"That's not what we achieved, though. We underachieved relative to that, and the reason is that we had some of the data, and we didn't even trust it. 

"The first time that data got flagged up was far too late in the process to make corrections, and a strange thing, and when you fall three weeks behind - that's what we fell behind - that's unrecoverable. 

"There's no way of coming back, because everything else is chalked up in the system, ready to go on those dates, and so when one bit falls away, all of it falls away as a result."