James Vowles explains why Williams turned Alex Albon's Japanese GP into a live test session

Williams Formula 1 team principal James Vowles has revealed that Alex Albon's unusual burst of late pitstops during the Japanese Grand Prix was a deliberate decision to transform the final laps of the race at Suzuka into a live testing session. 

The Grove outfit has had a troublesome start to the 2026 season after it missed private testing in Barcelona and arrived at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix with an overweight car. 

As the chequered flag closed in, it became abundantly clear that a points finish was out of reach, so the team decided to test various front wing angles.

"What were we doing with Alex in those last few laps of the race where he was coming in and out for pitstops? We know we weren’t in a point-scoring position, but equally we want to make sure we maximise our learning in all of these races whilst that is the case," Vowles explained when answering fan questions during The Vowles Verdict.

"In order to correlate between track and our wind tunnel and CFD facilities, you can do a number of things. For example, you sometimes see flow viz being added to the car, the sprayed paint. You sometimes see rakes being run, especially in the free practice. That's clearly not something we're going to go and fit in a race.

Alexander Albon, Williams

Photo by: Lars Baron / LAT Images via Getty Images

"For us, what we were doing is actually going up and down on front wing angle and ensuring that what we expected as a map for the amount of downforce we had at the front of the car, but also the rear of the car, correlated exactly across three or four different angles.

"And what it helps us do is just make sure we haven't got any other gains or losses we wouldn't expect otherwise and the map that we're using is somewhat correct as we move forward in the wind tunnel."