Dutch GP: Difficult Sprint & Qualifying for Williams F1 Team


By Williams F1 Team
August 23 2026

The Sprint and Qualifying session would prove to be both difficult sessions for the Atlassian Williams F1 Team with both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz finishing down the order in both. The Sprint would see Carlos starting from the pit lane and for him his Sprint would become pretty much a test session. For Alex would he would finish where he started in 16th. Qualifying would see Alex 16th and Carlos 17th after making some changes that did improve their cars but not by as much as hoped. It is very much the case that both drivers are getting the best from a car that is far from its most competitive.

 
 Atlassian Williams F1 Team Dutch GP Sprint - Qualifying
 
Sainz
 
Sainz

Carlos Sainz:
"Sprint weekends don’t leave much time to root out problems and we used the Sprint Race pretty much as a practice session, where we tried different things to improve the balance. This afternoon the car was feeling better and the changes we’ve done made it more comfortable to drive. My lap felt decent and we missed out on Q2 by a very thin margin.

Tomorrow we’ll try our best to put everything together and execute a clean race to extract the maximum of our car and see where that takes us."

Albon

Alex Albon:
"I'm happy with that Q2 lap; we made a few changes that worked between the Sprint and qualifying, so the balance was better, but we're still struggling with pure downforce. I don't think I quite extracted the maximum in Q1, but I definitely did in Q2, and it's probably the most complete lap I've done in a while. We got into more of a rhythm today and were more consistent with our laps, so at least we got one Haas and both Astons behind us for tomorrow. We still need to understand why our starting setup was so far out, because that's something we can build on. With a better setup, maybe we can look after our tyres better too - that's going to matter tomorrow as the deg was high in the Sprint. Overtaking is trickier around Zandvoort, so I'm expecting some tyre games in the race and multiple stops. Let's see what Sunday brings."

 
Vowles

James Vowles Team Principal:
"It was a great lap from Alex in Q2. That’s all the car had in it today, but it's good to see him across this weekend, really extracting everything we could. With Carlos, just really on the back foot from those first few laps in FP1, but he did a great job today to bring the car back to somewhere sensible with just a few milliseconds between him and Alex. It was also good to see us close the gap to the front of the field. Still much larger than we want it to be, but generally in the right direction.

We've saved some tyres for tomorrow's race, which I think will also be very helpful, and hopefully, weather will come into play, and we can take every opportunity that comes our way."

 
Albon
 
Track: Circuit Zandvoort, Netherlands    Lap Length:  4.259km
Sprint Race
A Albon • Finished: P16
• Started: P16
• Strategy: Medium (Used)
• Fastest lap: 1:17.673
C Sainz • Finished: P20
• Started: PLS
• Strategy: Medium (Used)
• Fastest lap: 1:17.431
 
Grand Prix Qualifying
A Albon • Finished: P16
• Q1: 1:13.552
• Q2: 1:13.182
C Sainz • Finished: P17
• Q1: 1:13.574
 
Sainz
 
Albon
 

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