Williams half-season review: Playing catch-up after sharp 2026 decline

Williams has so far failed to hit the heights it had hoped in the new regulations, with the team having plummeted to ninth in the Constructors’ standings this season.

After one of its best years in the past decade in 2025, taking fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship, hopes were high that the Grove-based team could kick on further in 2026, but a series of problems have led that to not be the case.

Williams suffers tough birth with FW48

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Like so much of the grid, Williams had placed a huge amount of cache on succeeding in the 2026 regulation set.

While that simply is not possible for everyone, look no further than the beginning of the year for why it has been an uphill struggle from the start.

Williams missed January’s Barcelona shakedown test due to the FW48 suffering delays in its build programme, which had been reported as early setbacks in passing FIA crash tests as the team pushed the limits on its design, though these rumours were not directly addressed by team principal, James Vowles, at the time.

Vowles did clarify the team would have been able to take part in the test in Barcelona, but felt it was a better use of its resources to utilise VTT [virtual track testing] to run through the programmes it wanted to complete.

Williams said it had been pushing the boundaries on its design as far as possible to create as much performance for itself as it could, and while innovation is what Formula 1 is all about, when it does not quite go to plan, it can leave lasting effects.

The car eventually hit the track in Bahrain and proved reliable from the off, completing a significant amount of laps, but it was soon clear that others held an advantage, not least because the FW48 proved to be significantly overweight, with figures north of 20kg over the weight limit mooted.

Since then, it has been an uphill battle for Williams and, while upgrades have come throughout the season and a handful of points have been scored, 2026 has proven nothing like the campaign Williams had envisaged for itself.

Both Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon have given numerous pleas and hints about bringing as many upgrades as possible to the car, with the team not only playing catch-up but, if it is to overtake others in the pecking order, out-developing those ahead in a season where any given set of updates can significantly boost your chances.

Both have confirmed the weight of the car has decreased as the year has progressed and other updates have come to the car, but the team has gone five races without a point, and a double Q1 exit in Hungary is proof of the work still to be done.

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How have the drivers performed, and critiqued the car this season?

It was the team’s potential to push on that saw Sainz, the grid’s most eligible free agent in 2024, move to Grove for 2025, with a significant portion of his thinking being on this regulation reset.

His two podiums later on in 2025 will no doubt have bolstered the view that he’d make the right choice after leaving Ferrari, but it has all gone awry by a competitiveness standard in 2026.

Sainz in particular has been vocal in calling for improvements as the season goes on, emphasising the need for not just placing upgrades on the car, but improving the car with the right new parts for additional gains.

Take one of his former teams, for example, which managed to leapfrog both Mercedes and Ferrari at the last race.

He said of McLaren’s jump to the front in Hungary to PlanetF1.com and others: “Yeah good job, congrats, another team that proves that you can develop your car in season and bring performance to your car and go from being six, eight tenths off where you want to be to putting yourself where you want to be.

“So, there are plenty of examples out there for us this year that demonstrate that, if you understand and do things well, you can actually do some big steps.

“There is a big carrot there for us. I just hope that we understand soon and find a way around it.”

On the driving front, both he and Albon are just one point apart in the standings, though six points and five at this stage place them 15th and 16th in the championship.

In terms of how the two have matched up, while Albon was the driver who absolutely had the better of things for most of last season at Williams, Sainz has grown and improved to the extent where the script has flipped this time around.

He comfortably leads Albon over one lap this season and, while that gap narrows in race trim, Albon 4-2 ahead when both drivers have finished, reliability issues have hampered both at different times in 2026.

For Albon, now in his fifth season with Williams, tidying up qualifying is a must for him if he is to remain at the forefront of the team as, when he and Sainz go into battle on Sundays, the fight is much closer.

The 2026 silly season has yet to fully kick in, with current understanding being that Sainz is set to stay at Williams for next year, but as with any year in Formula 1, one move could trigger a chain reaction throughout the paddock.

What next for Williams?

All the team can do is continue to push on the path for upgrades for immediate performance gains, with both Albon and Sainz doing what they can on track to make the most of opportunities when they arise.

The verdict is not looking particularly strong for the rest of the season, with Albon and Vowles both having alluded to upgrades which are in the pipeline for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as being a step, but not enough to get back in the fight for points.

What Albon did add in Hungary, however, is that focus has already turned to ironing out the FW48’s weaknesses for next season and providing a better platform.

He said: “It’s a shame that we’re here in the first place, but I do believe we’re doing the right thing.

“So, if it’s cured by Baku, I doubt it. I think a lot of the Baku stuff has happened – that upgrade was planned quite a long time ago.

“A lot of what we’re really fortunately biting into is next year’s car. It’s making sure next year’s car doesn’t have these traits.”

A silver lining of sorts, then, but it sounds likely to be a potentially painful end to a season which had long been earmarked as one full of promise.

PlanetF1.com half-season rating: 4/10

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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