Last week’s confirmation from Williams that both Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon have extended their deals showed faith in the team and its management.
This has been a poor season for an outfit that finished an impressive fifth in the World Championship last season, and even logged podium finishes. Sainz and Albon anticipated that in 2026 at the very least they would be at the head of the chasing pack behind the top four teams. However, that’s not how it has turned out.
The team got its sums badly wrong with the FW48 amid the transition to the new regulations. The car was completed so late that Williams had to miss the crucial first test, and when it finally ran it was slow, in large part because it was significantly overweight.
Heading into the summer break, the team lay P9 in the points, ahead of only Aston Martin and Cadillac — and in Hungary, upgrades moved the previously struggling Aston ahead on pure performance.
Both drivers could thus be forgiven for looking at other future options, especially Sainz. He was a winner with Ferrari a couple of years ago, and having been ousted to make way for Lewis Hamilton, he is eager to get back into a car that gives him a shot at fighting for victories.
In the end, both drivers put their short-term frustrations behind them and decided to stay, having heard what team principal James Vowles had to say about the way forward.
Asked by Road & Track if he’d been concerned about losing one or the other of his drivers, Vowles made it clear that was indeed the case.
“Concerned about losing both,” he said. “Because they are World Championship material drivers that deserve the opportunity to be fighting for podiums or more, and we haven’t delivered that. And more than that, we had a scope of where we were moving to. I hope there’s no doubt to the outside world that over the last few years, we’ve been slowly stepping forward. With last year being a blip, I think too positive from where we were, but a step in the right direction. So for us to move backward isn’t just a surprise to the drivers; it’s a surprise to everyone, and that will always create risk that you lose them.”
To their credit, Sainz and Albon saw a bigger picture than Williams’ 2026 form, and both also realized that they have their own part to play in turning things around.
“What I’m thankful for is the moment we had problems, they stood by our side,” said Vowles. “It wasn’t finger-pointing. It was actually, ‘Tell me what I can do,’ and they both came into the factory, spoke to the whole organization, and gave them a lift. Carlos did the same, and Alex did the same this week. Once they re-signed, they wanted to make sure that they were here with the team. They want this to be a part of them that is here on a turnaround of this organization, and I’m thankful for that.”
Vowles gave an incredible sales pitch to Sainz in the summer of 2024 to persuade him to join. So what did he have to do two years on in order to convince him to stay?
“What we demonstrated to him is everything that happened this winter,” said Vowles. “Everything that we are doing right now to fix it, the corner that we’ve turned as a result of it, and what the future looks like. And there’s zero doubt about it. We are way off where we wanted to be. We have a car that was overweight, late, and not the performance specification that we wanted it to be. So those are just facts. What Carlos wanted to see, and Alex for that matter, is the changes that we are doing that show us that that’s the right trajectory to go through.”
Sainz was particularly frustrated when a much-heralded front wing update for the British Grand Prix didn’t appear to yield results, but ultimately that hasn’t discouraged him from staying.
“Silverstone was an unfortunate blip,” Vowles insisted. “It’s been a really difficult season. Whatever happens, we’re turning up at the tracks and just not where we want to be, and not even able to score points now. But what Carlos can see, and Alex especially, because he’s been here since ‘22, is you just wind back six months, 12 months, and then you wind forward what we’re doing over the next six, and it’s a combination of people, process, system, structures — it’s not one thing — and it shows them that we are on the right path. There are just elements of this year that the pain we caused ourselves this winter has had an impact, probably all the way across ‘26 to be completely frank.”
That path has involved aggressive recruitment for key personnel. Among the recent arrivals is Piers Thynne, who holds the unusual job title of Chief Optimization and Planning Officer — essentially a COO role overseeing the factory, production, and related operations. He comes from a similar position at McLaren, where he played a significant part in the team’s return to winning form.
Keeping both drivers will also help Williams to progress, because continuity always helps. There’s also the boost that everyone in the camp has been given — had one or the other driver jumped ship, it would have been a blow to the team’s collective confidence.
“For me, it’s incredibly important,” said Vowles. “I can’t tell you everything that’s going on behind the scenes, but I can tell them. And if they are re-signing, it will give you an indication that there’s a lot of change ongoing, that they believe in what the future looks like. And that belief is incredibly important, whether it’s for team members, or for anyone in the outside world. The team is really maturing and changing, and as much as you can keep consistent, especially in your driver line-up, it becomes desperately important in order to keep building on that. The best way to summarize it to you is the factory — there’s a weight lifted off it this week, and I’ve seen them move forward at much faster pace as a result. So the belief is real and tangible.”
