Report: No points but plenty learned in Melbourne

Alex Albon finished P12 whilst Carlos Sainz P15 at the chequered flag in Albert Park

Published

08 MAR 2026

Est. reading time

4 min

The first race of a new era in Formula 1 is complete and, whilst it didn’t deliver points for Atlassian Williams F1 Team, it did provide plenty of learnings.

Both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz saw the chequered flag, coming home in P12 and P15 respectively.

All eyes were on the start at Albert Park, but two drivers – Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg – wouldn’t join the action.

As the lights went out, our duo moved forward from their P15 and P21 grid spots. Alex was up three positions to P12, whilst Carlos gained seven places to run P13.

The Haas of Ollie Bearman made moves on our duo in successive laps before they set about reeling in Fernando Alonso, who had taken advantage of the first-lap incidents.

Both drivers completed their moves on the Aston Martin by lap seven, before the first of three Virtual Safety Car deployments was triggered when Isack Hadjar pulled over on lap 11.

Both of our drivers used this intervention to dive in for their first stops, Carlos switching from softs to hards, whilst Alex also went onto the white-walled Pirelli rubber after starting on mediums.

A lock-up from Alex at turn 3 shortly after green flag running resumed allowed Carlos to make a straightforward pass on his teammate, before a second VSC was called to attend to the stricken Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas.

Running in formation midway through the Grand Prix

Our drivers were free to race once more after the resumption, but Alex was running quicker than Carlos who was suffering with a front wing issue, and the Spaniard let his teammate through at turn 11.

The final VSC on lap 34 was for debris on the fourth straight mode zone, which allowed us to double stack both drivers.

Alex switched onto softs and returned in P12, whilst Carlos fitted the medium compound and rejoined in P15.

Our No. 55 soon engaged in a hard but fair battle with the Alpine of Franco Colapinto, but after radioing that he’d learned what he wanted to, he was brought in for a third stop to fit soft tyres and run a different front wing. He returned to the circuit in P15, where he would finish.

Alex had the Racing Bulls car of Liam Lawson to deal with in the closing laps, but he kept the Kiwi at bay to bring his FW48 home in P12.

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James Vowles, Team Principal

“A challenging weekend, but with good learning that will serve us well for our future. We know that whilst we're not performing at the level we want to, this is the opportunity to make sure we understand everything about this car and we executed that during the race with both drivers. “It's clear that we're lacking performance and there's a plan in place to bring that to the car aggressively. Beyond that we also had a number of small issues across the weekend that are being flushed out - both cars got to the end of the race, but there was performance left on the table as a result of it. We will get back together and review what needs to be changed for Shanghai. There's a lot to learn, and I'm confident that every race we do will be another step. "On a separate note, it was great to see the quality of racing up and down the field under these new regulations, with overtaking at one of the most difficult tracks to pass. So whilst everything isn't perfect, as a sport we're not in a bad place."

Alex Albon

“It was a long race for us today. Currently we are in no man’s land and not really fighting against the midfield, however our strategy was good, but it’s clear we are lacking pace. It’s obvious from lap times that we’re overweight and not producing enough downforce, and graining was also a problem for us today especially on the hard tyre. “Realistically we know where we can find the lap time and the team are working tirelessly on an aggressive plan to get us closer to where we want to be. A positive from today is that we got mileage and that we overcame some reliability issues from previous sessions, but we’ll learn as much as we can from this weekend to apply next time out in Shanghai."

Carlos Sainz

“It’s been a tough weekend with too many issues across every session. We had a great start and I managed to climb to P12 in the initial laps. Unfortunately, we had an issue with the front wing which cost us all the aero balance and the understeer I picked up meant we started degrading the tyres massively. “From then on it became a test session for me to be honest. This front wing issue is not new and we need to focus on solving these sort of problems quickly if we want to improve in the short term. We’ve got homework ahead of us, but I trust we can put together a good plan to make those improvements."

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Report: No points but plenty learned in Melbourne

Alex Albon finished P12 whilst Carlos Sainz P15 at the chequered flag in Albert Park