Williams boss, James Vowles believes that Spa Francorchamps offers his team the opportunity to come back swinging.

Much was expected of the Grove outfit after it finished 'best of the rest' last season, but for various reasons, most notably the car being worryingly overweight at the start of the year, it hasn't delivered.

The team has the best engine on the grid, assuming you ignore ADUO, and while the Mercedes power unit has allowed Alpine to take a significant step forward, Williams has slipped to the back of the pack.

Speaking on the Vowles Verdict show for the team's YouTube channel, Vowles, while insisting that Williams has learned from its recent mistakes, says he believes Spa offers the perfect opportunity for a re-set.

"We take stock of everything that we know that is data-driven and factual," he said, "but conversely create buckets of unknowns, of which there were a number and a little bit more coming out of Silverstone than we had previously.

"So you get rid of all the items that we can put answers to or drive some data, and just focus on those key elements and that will drive us in a direction forward," he added.

"All of that has a direct impact on what you do in the future, has a direct impact on how you shape or modify performance that you bring to the track at a future state. But if you don't understand the now, you can't modify the future."

Looking ahead to Spa, he said: "Weather is typically a challenge. I appreciate, at the moment, we're in a heatwave. In Belgium, that may not be the case. So, let's see if we end up with our first wet Grand Prix of 2026 as a result of it. Whatever happens, for me, I enjoy going there.

"I enjoy going there because it is a challenge that's unlike most of the other circuits on the calendar. And it's an opportunity for us to reset and come back swinging."

Meanwhile, talking to the Press Association, Vowles confirmed his commitment to keeping Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz on board, the Spaniard being out of contract at season end.

"Carlos and Alex are the two drivers I want in this car," he said. "Full stop. No other debate about it!"

Dropped by Ferrari in favour of Lewis Hamilton, Vowles appreciates that Sainz is a proven winner.

"That's why I made sure he was here," he said. "Because what often happens, the way I would describe a lot of problems we have in a lot of businesses is we have hard workers. But if you don't know what great looks like, you're not striving towards great.

"There's an expression I really love, which is you can continuously improve a candle, but you won't get a flashlight to light it. So sometimes you need to actually know what a flashlight looks like to go, 'I'm going to stop doing this and we're going better'.

"Carlos is able to bring that," he insisted. "It's not friction, not hitting each other against the head and going, 'I'm not moving, you're not moving'. It's 'I need to be here, can we get there? I can get there, but here's the time period for it. Can you deal with that time period'?

"The timescale is... we'll be in the position to be able to win grands prix by 2028 and the position to be fighting for the championship by 2030," he claimed.

As for his own position within the team...

"I have zero regrets from day one of joining," he said. "The surprise has been probably just how much there is to do and then how much we keep uncovering.

"There's no lack of enjoyment," he added. "It's fatiguing, there's no doubt about it. But you're motivated by, I can't think of many jobs in the world where you're given the ability to make this amount of positive change very quickly.