Williams has unveiled new bodywork, a new floor and a new diffuser, while no aerodynamic update has been declared. For this weekend’s round in Azerbaijan, Williams has declared up to five changes to its FW48, a scale of upgrade that could warrant it being described as a “B” version.
Carlos Sainz’s car receives, in particular, a new floor with redesigned front and rear corner sections, as well as new bodywork, a new diffuser and new front and rear suspension. The package includes the lighter chassis long awaited by the team, shedding the 18 kilos that still had to be removed, alongside a comprehensive aerodynamic redesign.
The changes are intended to deliver more performance, but free practice and qualifying will be needed to assess the scale of any potential step forward. According to the analysis, optimism remains restrained at Grove, including from Sainz, although the upgrade should represent progress over what was seen during the summer.
The absence of declared aerodynamic parts does not mean the car is unchanged. Adrian Newey had announced that lighter parts for the AMR26B would arrive this weekend, a point confirmed the previous day by Mike Krack, yet the team sheet remained blank. This is not an error: the new components have been structurally modified to reduce the car’s overall weight, without altering their design or previous aerodynamic effect.
The expected benefit of that weight reduction should be felt in corners, on the straights and in the car’s overall efficiency with the tyres.
McLaren, meanwhile, continues an especially intensive development programme in 2026, with up to eight new components listed for Baku, which would amount to the MCL40’s third major upgrade of the season. Some have questioned how the team can extract so much from the same budget as its rivals while having fewer wind-tunnel hours as champions in 2024 and 2025.
McLaren arrives at this round with entirely new bodywork from behind the front axle to the diffuser. It was, overall, the best car of the summer, with two wins for Norris and a third lost at Madring through bad luck. It could become the benchmark car on the grid through to the end of the year, particularly as Mercedes and Ferrari have declared no updates this weekend.
Red Bull arrives with a reworked upper section of its sidepods to improve in corners. Verstappen could also find the small step he needs to take his first win of 2026.
Source : Marca
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