Williams to revive its ‘Forward W’ and tweak team name for 2026 in nod to its roots
Williams is rolling the clock forward by looking back. From the start of the 2026 season, the team will compete as Atlassian Williams F1 Team and bring back its iconic ‘Forward W’ logo — the mark that framed the outfit’s rise through the late 70s, 80s and 90s.
The move lands as the team edges toward its 50th anniversary and seeks to bottle a bit of what made it great in the first place. It’s a heritage play, sure, but not a hollow one. Under Dorilton Capital and team principal James Vowles, Williams has rediscovered its footing in 2025’s upper midfield, and the timing — with fresh regulations arriving in 2026 — is deliberate.
The new identity retires the Atlassian Williams Racing moniker for the more formal Atlassian Williams F1 Team. It’s a subtle shift for a squad that only races in Formula 1 anyway, but the badge matters. The return of the original ‘Forward W’ — the clean, purposeful emblem first used in 1977 when Sir Frank Williams launched the outfit’s second act — is the headline. That logo stuck for more than two decades, right through Williams’ title-winning era, before being dropped after the team’s tie-up with BMW at the turn of the millennium. The last world championship? Jacques Villeneuve’s 1997 crown, achieved with the ‘Forward W’ on the nose.
Williams’ marketing director Marcus Prosser framed the change as more than a retro flourish. “With this new name and logo our rich history is being reimagined for the future,” he said. “It is inspired by our past, confident about our future, and clear about our identity — a Championship-winning Formula 1 team with a burning drive to win again.”
Vowles, who has set about modernising Grove at a clip since arriving, positioned the rebrand as a bridge between eras. “I am proud that from next year we will be known as Atlassian Williams F1 Team and carry a logo on our car inspired by our founder Sir Frank Williams and deeply connected with our decades of success,” he said. “As a team we are inspired by our past but excited about our future, and committed to writing a new Championship-winning chapter in Williams’ history.”
There’s a competitive pulse behind the nostalgia. The 2025 driver pairing of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz — as listed for Williams on the 2025 Formula One World Championship entry — has given the team steel on Sundays. Sainz’s podium in Baku delivered the outfit’s first top-three finish since 2021 and, more importantly, the sense that Williams can now punish the front-runners when the opportunity presents itself. Those are the kind of days that swell a factory’s confidence and loosen sponsor pens.
The 2026 rule reset offers a natural breakpoint to complete the transformation Vowles has been pushing: leaner processes, sharper operations, and a car philosophy ready for new chassis and power unit prescriptions. The revived crest is the outward tell that Williams intends to arrive at that party as something more than a plucky underdog. And if you’re old enough to remember the last time a ‘Forward W’ was carving up the field, you’ll know the symbol carries weight.
Is a logo going to find lap time? Of course not. But in F1, identity is currency — with fans, with partners, and inside your own walls. Williams’ decades of success created one of the sport’s great followings, and there’s a generation that only knows the team by its fallow years. Reintroducing the emblem from its title-winning past is a way of saying: this is who we are, and this is where we’re going.
The family no longer runs the operation, but the spirit that powered Sir Frank’s outfit through its gritty, independent ascent clearly still resonates at Grove. Now it’s etched back onto the nosecone. The name is tighter, the badge is bolder, and the message is simple: Williams isn’t just curating its museum; it’s rehanging the sign on the front door and pointing it down the pit lane.
