Mexican GP: Positive qualifying for Williams F1 Team
By Williams F1 Team
November 1 2026
Qualifying for the 2026 Mexican GP would see Atlassian Williams F1 Team drivers Carlos Sainz finish 16th and Alex Albon 17th. Carlos was able to make it into Q2 but 16th was the best he could manage while for Alex he would finish just outside Q2. But such were the times with Carlos and Alex if Alex had made it into Q2 it would have been at the cost of Carlos. But given the limitations of the FW48 the result was still a positive one for both the drivers and team. As for Sunday's race the chances for a points result are realistically slim but given the incidents that have taken place in previous Mexican races you just never know.
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Atlassian Williams F1 Team
Mexican GP Qualifying Review |
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Alex Albon:
"It was a good lap, maybe my best of the year, so I’m happy with that.
We had a deployment issue into Turn 1 due to traffic in sector three,
which cost us about six tenths - we tried to make it up through the rest
of the lap but unfortunately, I think this was the difference in making
Q2. Our race pace should be good relative to Aston but realistically,
we’ve got a gap to the Alpines. Regardless, we'll try to have some fun
out there, with the focus being on getting the most out of our car." |
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Carlos Sainz:
"We had the chance to get the car into Q2 today. We maximised what
we had and took our opportunity, so we can be happy with that. Still, I
didn’t feel as comfortable compared to yesterday and I was fighting the
car a lot more than usual. We’ve been struggling with balance, and we
overcorrected slightly with the setup changes we made. We have faster
cars in front and behind us tomorrow, so it will be very tricky to get
into the points, but we’ll try our best to put on a good show for these
fantastic fans!" |
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James Vowles, Team Principal:
"It was a great lap from Alex. Because of the yellow flag, we had
to push right to the limit, and with the traffic he wasn’t able to get
his deployment in the right place and lost out on that lap. Otherwise,
that should’ve pulled him through into Q2. It was a great effort from
him. Carlos delivered everything the car could, but the gaps are tight.
Looking to tomorrow, it’s always entertaining on the run down to Turn 1
here, so as always, head down and we’ll do the best we can."
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Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez,
Mexico |
Lap Length: 4.304km |
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Pos |
Driver |
Team |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
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| 16 |
C Sainz |
Williams Racing |
1:18.521 |
1:18.885 |
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17 |
A Albon |
Williams Racing |
1:18.630 |
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