James Vowles dismisses Charles Leclerc’s concerns about 2026 F1 cars

Williams Formula 1 team boss James Vowles says he doesn’t share Charles Leclerc’s concerns about the 2026 regulations, arguing that the new formula is “not bad at all.”

On the eve of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, Leclerc described 2026 F1 cars as not the “most enjoyable I’ve driven so far” after sampling an early Ferrari model on the simulator in Maranello.

The Monegasque driver pointed to the increased power saving demands under the new rules as a major worry, warning that it could have a negative impact on the quality of racing.

But Vowles believes there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the next breed of 2026 cars and that drivers will simply need to adjust their approach.

“There was a driving style change that you need to do,” he said. “But it's like anything—we have to change the driving style to adapt to these cars.

“No one really wants to be kangarooing along the ground, and yet, actually, the formula now is quite a good racing series, for what it's worth.”

Vowles also suggested that Ferrari may be relatively early in its development of the 2026 car, and that Leclerc’s concerns could reflect that limited understanding.

“It's probably fair to say we're advanced relative to other teams in terms of what we're doing, and ‘it gets better’ is my comment to Charles,” he added.

“It kind of gives us an indication of where they are at the moment in terms of their cycle.

“I actually don't think the formula for next year is bad at all. I think it's different.”

The last time F1 updated both the chassis and engine regulations at the same time was 2014, which set a sustained period of dominance for Mercedes that only ended in 2021 when Max Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton to the drivers’ title.

While the updated chassis rules are quite significant in themselves, the major focus is on the new hybrid engines, which mandate 50 per cent of the power supply from electric components.

Despite being overly positive about the 2026 cars, Vowels believes there is scope to fine tune the regulations to fix some smaller issues.

“I think there's work to be done, because I'm a little bit concerned about how we get the differentiation in terms of overtaking. There's some real detailed things we're gonna sort out. Like do we run straight line mode in the wet?

"It doesn't sound really exciting or important, but to explain it, we're gonna be running the cars low, and if you save the straight line mode and it dries up, you're just basically gonna wear through the front of the car.

"So there's some details like that we've gotta get into and fix, but we will do as a result of it. But actually once you go over the hurdle, some nice things come out the other side of it. They're just not there at the moment, so I'm looking forward to next year, not the other round."