Williams may not have rolled a car out in Barcelona, but James Vowles certainly wasn’t blind to what went on there. While the FW48 stayed back at Grove, the team still had people embedded in the paddock and along the pitlane during the Circuit de Catalunya shakedown — quietly clocking who looked tidy, who looked rushed, and, just as importantly in a new-rule year, who looked like they’d built something that could actually run.
That last point was the giveaway in Vowles’ readout. Asked after Williams’ launch which rivals had caught his eye, he didn’t lean on lap time gossip or sweeping predictions. He talked about the stuff that matters when everyone’s still learning their new machinery: reliability, consistency, and the ability to get meaningful mileage early.
Top of his list was Red Bull — and specifically its power unit effort.
“First of all, I’ve been really impressed with Red Bull, especially on the power unit side,” Vowles said. “To do a power unit from scratch and it turn out to be that reliable is mighty. Well done to them.”
It’s a telling compliment because it’s not the kind you dish out lightly, particularly from a team boss who knows exactly how brutal the first proper running of a new package can be. A clean shakedown doesn’t guarantee a trouble-free season, but it does suggest good groundwork: systems talking to each other, basics in place, and a programme that isn’t being derailed by the sort of early gremlins that chew through parts — and morale.
Ferrari was the second name Vowles volunteered, and again his emphasis wasn’t on outright speed.
“Ferrari’s consistency, perhaps the outright pace is in question, but the consistency is really impressive for them. Again, from the get-go.”
In other words: whatever Ferrari’s ultimate ceiling proves to be, it appears to have started 2026 with a car that does what it’s told. That’s not a small thing at the beginning of a regulation reset, when teams can spend the first flyaways simply trying to stabilise aero maps, temperatures and ride behaviour. Consistency is what allows you to learn quickly — and learning quickly is what turns into performance by the time the championship rhythm sets in.
Mercedes completed Vowles’ trio, which will surprise nobody given his long history there — but he wasn’t handing out nostalgia points. He was impressed at how quickly Mercedes looked comfortable doing proper work.
“Mercedes. I mean, I was there for a long time. They’re very good at getting regulation change right and walking out with a package that’s just robust and reliable,” he said. “But if you’re doing a race sim, just about a day into testing, is very, very impressive.”
That detail is the sort of thing team personnel notice instantly. Anyone can put together a short run to check systems. Choosing to run a race simulation early is a different message: it says you trust the fundamentals enough to start stress-testing the full Sunday picture — fuel loads, tyre management, cooling headroom, and operational rhythm — rather than spending day one chasing basic correlation.
Vowles also fielded the inevitable question about Aston Martin, with the Adrian Newey factor hanging over every early-season paddock conversation. He didn’t try to rank them, and he was careful not to pretend anyone has a clear pecking order yet — but he did point to one area where Newey has, in Vowles’ view, already left fingerprints.
“It’s really impressive,” Vowles said of the AMR26. “Adrian is just a creative designer, and it’s really impressive what he’s done with wishbones in places that I don’t think they should be, but he’s done them.”
That line — “in places that I don’t think they should be” — is classic paddock-speak. It’s half admiration, half warning shot. It doesn’t mean it won’t work; it means it’s unconventional enough to make experienced people blink, then walk back for a second look. In the first week of a new era, those are often the cars everyone crowds around, because even if the concept doesn’t end up being *the* solution, it can nudge the whole grid’s thinking.
Still, Vowles wasn’t tempted into declaring anyone the team to beat. If anything, he poured cold water on the idea that Barcelona provided a clean read.
“It’s hard for anyone to tell you where the ordering is, because also, I don’t think the cars you necessarily see today will be the cars you see in Melbourne, and that’s what makes it interesting in the beginning of season,” he said. “So they’ve impressed me. Where they all sit? Hard to tell.”
And he’s right. Shakedown form is often more about process than pace: who’s arrived prepared, who can bank laps without drama, who’s already confident enough to run longer stints, and who’s still in that uncomfortable phase of nursing a new car through its early mileage. For Williams — watching rather than participating — that information is valuable in its own way. You can’t change your own winter work in February, but you can calibrate expectations, sharpen your first-race priorities, and understand which opponents look like they’ve started 2026 on the front foot.
In a season defined by brand-new machinery and the inevitable chaos that follows, Vowles’ Barcelona scoreboard wasn’t a prediction. It was a snapshot of competence — and in the opening act of a regulation revolution, competence is often the first competitive advantage.
