Williams will introduce its long-awaited major FW48 upgrade at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, effectively bringing what James Vowles has described as a B-spec version of its 2026 Formula 1 car. The package includes a new chassis, but the most important development may be taking place behind the scenes: Grove has completely changed the way it manufactures some of its largest carbon-fibre structures.
After a difficult start to Formula 1’s new technical era, marked by crash-test delays and an overweight car, Williams has spent much of the season trying to recover lost performance. The Baku package should represent a step forward, although Vowles is realistic that it will not suddenly deliver the objectives established before the season began. The aerodynamic deficit remains significant, but the project is also intended to prove that Williams is finally modernising the processes used to design and build its cars.
Williams FW48 B-spec finally arrives in Baku
As often happens at the beginning of a new technical cycle, some teams discover that their original concept has taken them in the wrong direction and are forced to make substantial corrections during the season. Aston Martin provided one example in Budapest, arriving with an extensively revised car, but Williams has faced its own particularly difficult recovery programme.
Delays in passing the required crash tests slowed development during the winter. As a result, the FW48 began the season well above Formula 1’s minimum weight limit, costing Williams several tenths of a second in performance.
Throughout the year, the team has worked to remove mass and move closer to the FIA limit. However, designing and manufacturing lighter components consumes both time and resources, inevitably slowing the parallel aerodynamic development programme.
Williams therefore chose to concentrate its resources and wait until Baku before introducing what amounts to an almost completely revised version of the car, including a new chassis. The Azerbaijan package has been planned for months and represents the largest single update of the team’s season.
Vowles has already cautioned that even this major step will not be enough to put Williams where it originally hoped to be in 2026. The team still faces a considerable aerodynamic shortfall, meaning the Baku update is as much about proving the accuracy of its development tools and factory processes as it is about immediate lap time.
Williams still trying to escape the lower end of the midfield
The immediate objective remains to move away from the lower positions and begin looking further up the midfield again. Haas has taken a significant step with its latest development package and moved closer to regular top-10 contention, while Williams has frequently found itself battling simply to avoid elimination in Q1.
That makes the Azerbaijan Grand Prix an important benchmark. If the FW48 produces the performance gain predicted at the factory, it will provide evidence that the technical organisation is heading in the right direction even if the car remains some distance from the leading teams.
The relevance of the Baku package, however, goes much deeper than the aerodynamic parts visible from the outside.
Williams changes how it manufactures its Formula 1 car
For several years Williams has been undergoing a major internal transformation. That process includes introducing new management software, tools for organising component production throughout the chain of command and across the season, and updated CAD platforms used by the design department.
Such a transformation inevitably requires sacrifices, including financially. Vowles estimates that the investment involved amounts to between six and eight million per year.
Time and resources are also required because Williams remains behind some of its Formula 1 rivals in manufacturing capability. The team is now attempting to close that gap by beginning with some of the most important parts of the car and changing the way its carbon fibre is processed.
Carbon structures form the fundamental structural core of a Formula 1 car, and the revised manufacturing approach has first been applied to major components including the chassis.
“It relates specifically to what we have done with the chassis and with other elements that are large carbon structures,” James Vowles explained in Madrid. “So it doesn’t apply to a small wing, but it concerns a way of working on a large scale. There is a traditional method that has existed for 15 years. What we have done now is completely different from what we have done over the last 15 years.”
Only 19 Williams employees knew about the new process
According to Vowles, knowledge of the new manufacturing technique was deliberately restricted to a very small group inside Grove while the project was being developed.
The first major application is the new chassis. With Williams already needing to reconsider its monocoque as part of its longer-term development, the team decided to use the opportunity to experiment with a fundamentally different production process.
“Inside our building, only seven people in the design department know about it. And in production, only 12 people knew what we were doing. Because now you have to protect it for as long as possible.”
“That’s fine. The product has been made, it is of very high quality. It has passed all the necessary tests. It is ready. So I’m happy with it. And it is much lighter and stronger.”
New Williams chassis aims to be lighter without sacrificing strength
Reducing weight is an obvious priority. Williams engineers were forced to accept compromises at the beginning of the year because of the delays accumulated during the winter, leaving the original FW48 considerably heavier than intended.
The challenge, however, is not simply to remove material. The objective is to maintain or improve structural strength while using fewer layers of carbon fibre, thereby reducing mass without compromising the chassis.
That is why Williams sees the programme as more than a solution for the remainder of 2026. It is effectively a development laboratory for future cars and a test of whether the team can fundamentally improve the way it manufactures Formula 1 machinery.
For Vowles, simply spending money to replace overweight components with slightly lighter versions would not represent genuine progress.
“What is important to me for our future is not simply making a lighter product. We can do that. We can make components lighter and correct our mistakes. But that wouldn’t be a good way to spend money.”
“A good way to spend money is to invest when ideas come to me that allow us to achieve something that is lighter and stronger.”
Vowles sees innovation as more important than simple weight reduction
The new approach takes longer because Williams is effectively learning a different manufacturing technique at the same time as trying to improve the current car. Vowles believes that investment is more valuable because the knowledge can be carried into future projects rather than providing only a one-off benefit to the FW48.
“It takes more time, but through a completely different method that allows us to start learning new techniques and new processes. That is what we will invest in at the same time.”
“Simply making it lighter is not that important. One thing, for me, is innovation; otherwise it would just be a slight improvement on what we are already doing.”
That makes Baku one of Williams’ most important weekends of the season. The stopwatch will reveal whether the revised FW48 delivers the expected performance gain, but the bigger test concerns Grove itself. Williams wants to prove that it can design, manufacture and introduce a major new specification during a season while simultaneously transforming the processes behind the car.
The FW48 B-spec may not immediately propel Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon towards the front of the grid, but if the new chassis is genuinely lighter, stronger and produced more efficiently, the technology behind it could prove considerably more important to Williams’ long-term recovery than the lap-time gain seen in Azerbaijan alone.
