Azerbaijan GP: Race vindication for Williams F1 Team
By Williams F1 Team
September 27 2026
The 2026 Azerbaijan GP would prove to be a successful one for the Atlassian Williams F1 Team with Carlos Sainz finishing the race in 10th achieving a single point result. The performances not only in the race but across the whole race weekend were in large part vindication of the massive effort that the team had put in to bring an upgraded FW48 to the event. The fact that the team was able to see a qualifying Q3 result as well as the point in the race showed that the updates that had being brought were working. Yes still a way to go to develop the new car but still so pleasing to see that the team is now back in the fight with the other midfield teams. Unfortunately the only negative aspect of the race was the DNF of Alex Albon who would crash into the barriers. Next stop Sepang where all being well the team will be able to again produce some noteworthy results.
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Atlassian Williams F1 Team
Azerbaijan GP Race Review |
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Alex Albon:
"It was a weird crash if I'm honest. I braked a little bit later than
the previous lap and there was a big wind gust which caught us out a
little bit. When I had my moment, I thought I would lock up and run a
bit wide; I never thought I was going to hit the wall. We'll look at the
data. In terms of the update, I think it's exactly the step we expected.
It's put us in a midfield fight. If you roll back to the start of the
year the car was delayed and it was overweight. We had to start a
project to make a new chassis and delivered it on time and on weight and
that is a huge difference to eight months ago. Hopefully now this is a
turning point, and we can explore this update more in Malaysia." |
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Carlos Sainz:
"I'm happy to get a point after yesterday’s penalty and I think the team
deserved it. It was a difficult race, but we had a good restart after
the safety car, doing a good job with tyre management and managed to get
into the points towards the end of the race. These upgrades are a good
sign of progress, but we know it’ll take a bit more to get in the points
regularly. Hopefully we’ll be able to have a bit more fun fighting in
the midfield for the remaining races." |
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James Vowles, Team Principal:
"Well done to the team. It's been a mammoth effort to bring the
update that we have here this weekend and it's nice to walk away with a
point, a singular point, but a point all the same, in what was a very
topsy-turvy weekend and race. Well done to Carlos. You can see we didn't
have the pace on that first stint, and we need to dig and understand
that because that was a critical part of the race where we weren't able
to make progress. With Alex really well done as he held onto that
starting position; just unfortunately a late brake combined with a wind
gust ended his afternoon. But Carlos was there and ready to pick up
points. We've got the first of a triple header done now; there’s lots to
do in front of us but it's nice that we've now got a package that's at
least in the mix. Let's see what we can do over the next few races." |
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Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan |
Lap Length: 6.003km |
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Pos |
Driver |
Summary |
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P10 |
C Sainz |
• Started: P14 • Strategy:
Medium, Soft • Fastest lap: 1:46.737 |
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DNF |
A Albon |
• Started: P12 • Strategy:
Soft • Fastest lap: 1:48.443 |
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