Williams unveils 2026 F1 livery

Williams has unveiled the livery for its 2026 car, with the delayed FW48 set to run for the first time ahead of pre-season testing next week.

The FW48 was supposed to be on track for the first time during the Barcelona shakedown, but delays meant Williams made the decision to skip that test completely as it focused on solutions. While the car itself will carry out a promotional day ahead of the first test in Bahrain – that starts on February 10 – the livery has been launched as planned with new partner Barclays featuring on a light blue and white sidepod.

“I personally think it looks fantastic for a number of reasons,” team principal James Vowles said. “It's got the white in it -which we ran that a little bit in Austin last year and wanted to keep that in there - it’s still got that really important key line, the red, in there and it's got obviously the blue which is iconic with Williams and ourselves. I think it looks fantastic.

“It’s also on the day that we've announced Barclays as our new official banking partner. It's just the latest example of a major global brand believing in our mission and our journey and wanting to be a part of it. And we've had - as you can see both from my top because I can't fold my arms anymore, but also on the car - just an exceptional commercial winter adding Anthropic BNY, Wilkinson Sword, Nuveen, and renewing with Kraken.

“That really is an example of how this team's not just transforming, the journey we’re on, though, which is more important to me, and the partners that want to be with us on that journey.”

Williams impressed in 2025, finishing a clear fifth in the constructors’ championship and Vowles says that has to be the baseline for the team moving forward, as he believes it can address the loss of the Barcelona track time before the opening race this year.

“I would much prefer to be in Barcelona. I'm gong to pre-empt it all with that. That was the goal, that was what we're intending to do. We did not achieve it.

“However what we did in terms of a week worth of VTT [virtual track testing] that was successful; and what we've been doing with both Carlos and Alex on the driver-in-the-loop simulator in tandem to whilst everyone else was in Barcelona; in addition – and we are fortunate to the fact that Mercedes has sufficient runners – there was quite a bit of information coming back on both the gearbox and the power unit that enables us to get ahead when we come to Bahrain, means that I do not believe with six days of testing we will be on the back foot.

“A little bit that's fortunate because the power unit is reliable, the gearbox is reliable and the VTT testing flushed out a lot of the demons that are buried in the car.

“What's missing is there's a lot of knowledge for the drivers to inherently perfect what's going on on track. What's missing is a correlation for where our aerodynamics really are, and a correlation for where our vehicle dynamics really are. Track data is the only way of establishing that.

“So there is a loss, but with six days of testing and with our driver-in-the-loop simulator – that we invested in as state-of-the-art, I'm very confident this is benchmark in the business – up and running at the end of last year, we are able to mitigate a lot of those.”