Nico Rosberg: “These are Williams’ mistakes” – update in Baku

The long-established English racing team Williams is in 9th place in the Constructors’ Championship; only Aston Martin and Cadillac are doing worse. This is a nasty slump, as in 2025 the third-oldest F1 team (after Ferrari and McLaren) had finished the championship in an encouraging fifth place.

For the upcoming Grand Prix weekend in Baku (Azerbaijan), Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon will finally receive the long-awaited update, “basically almost a new car”, as Williams team principal James Vowles puts it.

Formula 1 champion Nico Rosberg began his Grand Prix career with Williams in 2006. Speaking to the British broadcaster Sky, the 41-year-old from Wiesbaden said: “Williams really messed things up over the winter. They tried to be very ambitious in the construction of the chassis, to break new ground, to be truly innovative. But it backfired.”

“They’ve got far too much weight on the car; 10 kg of extra weight in this sport amounts to around three-tenths of a second per lap, depending on the track type – so that’s a huge amount if you’ve got a car that’s too heavy. That’s simply too much lap time lost.”

The 23-time Grand Prix winner continued: “So they’re fighting with their backs against the wall to recover from this, even though they have the best engine. With a Mercedes engine, you have no excuses when it comes to the chassis.”

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“I’m pretty sure the aerodynamics aren’t exactly optimal either. So they still need to make significant progress in that area as well.”

“Because Williams had really made progress in 2025, we thought they’d re-establish themselves permanently among the top six, but now they’ve fallen way behind, which is quite shocking.”

“This is also a difficult time for team principal James Vowles, whom I hold in high regard, but he now needs to turn things round to steer the team back in a positive direction – which isn’t easy.”