Carlos Sainz sets honest Williams timeline for ‘proper turnaround’

The Miami Grand Prix proved an important step for Williams, as Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon ensured a double points finish.

However, Sainz believes that only come “the last third of the season” will a “proper turnaround” be witnessed for Williams. Team principal James Vowles is happy with what Williams has in the “pipeline”, but admits that the development potential from rival teams is an unknown.

Carlos Sainz explains Williams’ expected F1 2026 turnaround timeline

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There was a great deal of buzz surrounding Williams going into F1 2026. The Grove squad had impressed in 2025, and entered the sport’s new era armed with the fancied Mercedes engine.

However, Williams has been navigating some bumps in the road. With an overweight FW48, the team was restricted to just two points scored in the opening three rounds.

Miami was an important boost as Sainz crossed the line ninth and Albon 10th, putting a further three points on the board.

Williams were one of several teams to bring upgrades for the season restart, but Sainz stressed that the journey remains long for Williams.

“It’s going to take some months to finish the turnaround,” Sainz declared to PlanetF1.com and other accredited media.

“I think we’re going to need to get to the last third of the season to see a proper turnaround.

“But at least the upgrades work. The weight of the car came a bit off, but we still know there’s a bit to go.

“We have a few bits and pieces coming for the next couple of races, so we’re going to keep the positives, and making sure we keep focusing on the negatives.”

Williams team boss James Vowles noted that Miami was a strong circuit for Williams last year. Albon was fifth, and Sainz P9.

But, Vowles believes the track specific elements of Williams’ Miami 2026 performance to be only “minor” in the grand scheme of the team’s improvement.

Performance projects, on a large scale, are continuing.

“A better weekend for us in Miami,” Vowles began in his Vowles Verdict debrief from the Miami Grand Prix.

“We’ve used the last five weeks to bring a good number of improvements to the car in Miami. Part of those was aerodynamic development, so a new floor, new bodywork. There were some more elements on the front wing, modified rear suspension, exhaust blowing.

“Some elements behind the scenes that you won’t be seeing, but just on ways of working, how to get data out, how to maximise the performance of the car.

“In total, there’s around about 30 performance projects that we’ve been working diligently on over the last five weeks to bring.

“The good news is, as we go through into Canada and beyond, some of those projects, will still be on track to be delivered and bring the performance up again.

“Also in Miami, we were able to take just a little bit of weight out of the car, which made a difference.

“It is small steps from where we were, which was on the back foot and not where we wanted to be at the beginning of the season, but I’m really pleased to see that the team got everything they could out of it.

“Alex and Carlos, really strong performance in that main race, especially off the line in the start, and keeping their nose clean to deliver another three healthy points in our championship fight.

“We have a long way to go though, and we’re completely aware that it’s a very tight battle in and around the teams that we’re with at the moment.

“Audi and Haas hadn’t brought performance to the car, and so that may change the picture over the next few races, that we need to take into account.

“What we can control is what we have available to us, and that is what we can bring in terms of performance and updates over the next two rounds to ensure that we’re just stepping forward relative to the field in small steps every time.

“We were strong in Miami last year. We were strong again this year. I suspect there’s going to be a little bit of track specific elements, where it’s allowed us to perform slightly better.

“But, that will be a small, minor part, relative to the large amount of growth we’ve had.”

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Vowles reiterated that over the “next three, four rounds, as we bring more and more performance”, what will be crucial is how does that “balance against those other teams” around Williams.

“We’re in this continuous fight to just bring performance every single race weekend, and it’s that relative gain that means you move forward relative to your competition,” he continued.

“Now, I’m happy with what we’ve got in our pipeline, but I don’t know what others have.

“We have more performance coming for Montreal. Again, it’s an odd situation where we’ve got these two weeks, and we want to maximise these two weeks to the best for our ability, or three before the grand prix.

“The pipeline is a little bit still up in the air, as to what we can 100 per cent deliver for that, but there could be a nice, sizeable amount of performance.

“The reality is, though, I think other teams, Mercedes, Audi, maybe Haas, will bring performance as well at the same time. So it’s just what we’re bringing, is it sufficient to maintain ground against those three teams. It’s hard to predict that right now.

“I’m happy with what we’ve got in the pipeline. I’m happy with what we’ve got in terms of a program, both with weight reduction and aerodynamic developments, as well vehicles dynamic events.

“What I know is the pipeline of work that we have all the way to and just slightly beyond the August break, that at the end of all of that, should put us in this comfortable position where we’re just consistently scoring points every weekend from then onwards.

“Until that point, I think we should be able to get closer and closer to, in a perfect weekend, achieving a points score, but not necessarily being the fifth fastest-team.

“For now, Alpine have that. We’ve got a few tenths left to find to them.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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