Williams Racing team principal James Vowles believes Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon’s working relationship was as strong from “minute one” as it was at the end of the season and championed the duo for helping the team move up the grid for next year.
Sainz joined the Grove outfit in 2025 after being replaced at Ferrari by seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. In his first season with Williams, the Spanish driver secured two podium finishes in Azerbaijan and Qatar, which were also the first podiums under Vowles’s leadership.
Albon has been with Williams since 2022 and has driven alongside the likes of Nicholas Latifi, Logan Sargeant and Franco Colapinto.
“From the very, very first test that we did in Bahrain together, all the way through Melbourne where we see Carlos wasn’t in the car but able to help the team, all the way through other races where the two of them were working together very freely in terms of debrief data set-up direction, it’s been a relationship that actually from minute one was as strong as it was at the end of the season,” the team chief said during The Vowles Verdict.
“And sometimes that can change team on team subject to the pressures the drivers are feeling, the team is feeling. That didn’t change anything here at all. And it’s just a sign of both of them being absolutely top sportsmen in their own right.
“But two, this is about our journey back to the front. And so we’re not getting caught up in the details of who finished where at which race. It’s about how does the team move forward?
“So, good examples I can provide you: If we go all the way back to Melbourne, Alex actually found a way of driving the Williams, which is slightly different to the Ferrari, especially through Turn 3. It’s a way of getting it rotated in the corner running the set-up and his psyche was very open with Carlos after FP1, once Carlos sort of came in and commented he was unable to follow a certain line.
Carlos Sainz, Williams, Alexander Albon, Williams, James Vowles, Team Principal, Williams
“That was the very first race, the start of that relationship, and it carried on through the season. There were subtleties to a Williams car that Alex was able to help Carlos with. The same in converse. What we did about halfway through the year is start to split the set-ups quite differently between the two cars because both drivers are within milliseconds of each other.
“But it allowed us to find two different directions, and it’s the honest feedback that comes back after the practice session that drives then the unified set-up. So that’s how it built and it will keep building into next year and beyond.”
Williams finished the season fifth in the constructors’ standings with 137 points, 45 points ahead of Racing Bulls in sixth.
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