Williams will miss the first Formula 1 test at Barcelona due to delays getting its 2026 car ready.
With minimum weight targets hard to meet while passing beefed-up FIA safety checks for 2026, and this test coming earlier than any other in recent times, even the most prepared teams have not had an easy winter.
Williams boss James Vowles had previously indicated how important it was that it would not suffer a repeat of its 2024 problems when a tough off-season meant the car was badly behind schedule and overweight at the start of the year.
This caused immense stress but also had competitive implications as it restricted parts supply and the team's development plan through the year while it caught up.
Williams was therefore extremely determined to avoid a repeat and even indicated it was stopping development of its launch car early to ensure it had enough time to meet production demands.
Then speculation emerged this week that Williams was struggling with its chassis build after all, and a doubt for the first test.
The team seemed to indirectly address that by releasing its fire-up audio late on Thursday but that was still unconvincing - as if the fire-up had only just happened, it would be quite late in the process given others completed theirs as early as December.
Williams then confirmed on Friday it would be absent from the first test entirely. It says there have been “delays in the FW48 programme as we continue to push for maximum car performance”.
Instead of going to Barcelona, Williams will test the car virtually.
Any version of missing some of the real-world running at Barcelona - and genuinely missing it, not just using up its allocation of days later like McLaren - immediately puts a team on the back foot even though there are two full tests in Bahrain still to come.
So missing the entire test is a clear setback in Williams’s preparation particularly as it had hoped 2026 would mark another step in its recovery, after scoring two podiums in 2025 and finishing fifth in the constructors’ championship.
At least six of the 11 teams will have completed a shakedown before Barcelona.
Unlike McLaren, which intends to run its car for the first time on Tuesday or Wednesday in the test as it wanted to maximise development time in advance, there has been no official explanation for why others including Red Bull are not running in advance, if it was planned, or how that impacts their test run plan.
