F1 team handed brutal 2026 “shocker” verdict by Nico Rosberg
Nico Rosberg takes aim at a struggling F1 team in 2026.
Nico Rosberg has been highly-critical of his former team Williams, branding its 2026 Formula 1 season as a “shocker”.
Williams has endured a miserable season in which it entered on the back foot with a car that was badly off the pace and considerably overweight.
The British squad has spent much of 2026 trying to course correct and recover as a result. Williams currently languishes ninth in the constructors’ standings, managing just 11 points so far this term.
And Rosberg, who began his F1 career with Williams in 2006, has brutally slammed the team for messing up its 2026 car development over the winter.
"Williams just messed up the winter. They messed up the winter developing this new car. They tried to be very ambitious in the way they were building the chassis, tried to go new ways, really innovate,” Rosberg said on the Sky Sports F1 Show.
"It ended up backfiring, and they've got a lot too much weight on the car. And remember that 10kg of extra weight in this sport is three tenths of a second per lap. So, it's enormous if you're overweight. It's just enormous lap time lost.
"So they're fighting an uphill battle to try and recover from that because they do have the best engine. Remember, they have a Mercedes engine, so there's no excuse there. I'm sure the aerodynamics must also not be in the best place. So, they still need to make a lot of progress there.”
Williams finished an incredible fifth in the 2025 constructors’ championship and claimed two podiums last year, but the Grove-based outfit has dramatically slumped down F1’s pecking order.
Rosberg believes Williams team principal James Vowles is also facing a “tough moment” amid the ongoing struggles.
"Unfortunately, because they were in such a great place in recent years, they were really making progress, and we really thought they were moving towards the top six or top eight again permanently, and now they've dropped back massively, which is a bit of a shocker,” the 2016 world champion added.
"It's a tough moment also for James Vowles, who I rate so highly, but he's really got to fight through this struggle now and turn things around and bring the team back towards a positive direction, which is not easy."
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