Hungarian GP: Difficult qualifying for Williams Racing


By Williams Racing
August 2 2025

Qualifying for the 2025 Hungarian GP would see the Atlassian Williams Racing Team's difficult weekend continue with the best that the team could achieve was a 13th from Carlos Sainz while team-mate Alex Albon was 20th. Right through all the practice sessions both drivers found it difficult to find a setup that would perform on the Hungaroriing circuit. For Carlos he was on the day able to find the grip he needed to see him make it into Q2 but for Alex his lap was described as scrappy. The results of qualifying puts the team in a difficult position for Sunday's race but with wet weather a possibility there may be opportunities.

 
 Atlassian Williams Racing Hungarian GP Qualifying Review
 
Albon
 
Albon

Alex Albon:
"We knew it was going to be a tough track for us here and it’s been one of those weekends where we’ve been chasing it and I haven’t felt that comfortable in the car. We went back to the FP1 car for Qualifying as that’s where I felt it was most predictable, but maybe the track has evolved since then. We were too slow on the outlap, then there was a bit of rear tyre degradation and other things, so it was a bit scrappy. It’s going to be tricky from P20 but maybe we will get some rain. Let’s see."

Sainz

Carlos Sainz:
"After our struggles all weekend, I’ll take P13 today although it’s not ideal. We found some grip and put good laps in when it mattered, but it hurts to see we were less than a tenth from Q3. The lap was good, but a bit of traffic and dirty air in sector two probably cost us that extra bit. Anyways, I prefer to keep the positives from today and fully focus on tomorrow. There might be surprises with the weather, so we need to make sure we are ready to take any opportunity."

 

James Vowles Team Principal:
"A really interesting Qualifying session and we learned a lot today. You can see that the normal ordering of teams just isn't apparent here. We have one Ferrari on pole, the other not making it to Q3. You can see that there's a spread and, I've said this before, but the field is getting closer and closer. For Carlos, the gap between himself and getting through into Q3 was just 90 milliseconds, which is nothing in any world. Carlos did a brilliant job; it was about getting the tyres working and he was able to do so. It was a good effort in terms of trying various outlaps that led to the success of getting into Q2.

With Alex, we tried a different direction and a different way of working the tyres, and we learned a lot thanks to his efforts. But it will come to us tomorrow. The car in a race condition should be better than where it is today. It also looks like there's rain on the forecast and in that condition, your qualifying place is less important than the ability to get the execution right on the day."

 
Sainz
 
Albon
 
Hungaroring, Hungary    Lap Length: 4.381km
Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3
13 C Sainz Williams Racing 1:15.652  1:15.781 -
20 A Albon Williams Racing 1:16.223  - -
 
Sainz
 

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