Report: Sprint and qualifying complete in Miami
All eyes on Sunday as post-break progress continues at the Miami International Autodrome
Published
02 MAY 2026
Est. reading time
4 min
Atlassian Williams F1 Team continued to show signs of progress at Formula 1’s resumption in Miami, with a clean Sprint race and a double Q2 appearance for the second day in succession.
Our duo were gaining places in the Sprint before the lights had even gone out, with Arvid Lindblad opting to start from the pit lane before later not taking the start, whilst Nico Hulkenberg’s power unit expired on his reconnaissance lap.
The opening lap of 19 was a clean affair, but Carlos dropped a couple of positions while Alex maintained P17. Our drivers weren’t hanging around for long, however, with CS55 making a pair of moves on Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson in quick succession, before AA23 also passed the New Zealander.
On lap five, Alex made the move stick on the Cadillac and we were soon up to P14 and P15. However, this would be as far as we would climb.
The two FW48s stayed close to the pair of Haas cars that occupied the next two positions, but were unable to make their pace advantage count while running in dirty air.
With six laps to go and points out of reach, the decision was made to bring Alex in to trial a different front wing and gather data for the remainder of the weekend.
Carlos remained on the tail of the Haas pair until the flag to come home in P14, while Alex gained one position after his stop, passing Valtteri Bottas to take P19.
Post-Sprint, Gabriel Bortoleto was disqualified for a technical breach, promoting us to P13 and P18.
Heading into Qualifying later in the afternoon, there was no let-up in the Miami heat, with track temperatures reaching 52°C (126°F).
Both drivers progressed comfortably through Q1 on their final runs of the opening knockout stage, with Carlos in P9 after a 1:29.540 and Alex in P13 with a 1:29.720.
Q2 proved to be the limit on Saturday afternoon. Both drivers found more time on their final flying laps, but not enough to break into the top 10. Carlos’ 1:29.568 sees him line up P14, with Alex’s 1:29.946 putting him P16 for Sunday’s race.
James Vowles, Team Principal:
"If we got everything perfect today, Carlos could’ve been P11 but Q3 wasn’t possible.
“For Alex, we have been suffering from inconsistency on speed across the start/finish line; there is a lot we’re asking the drivers to do to get everything prepared down the back straight, with a sequence of actions needed to get everything spot on. When you do that, the performance differential can be extreme. In the case of Alex, he had some traffic and with a minor change in throttle application, this meant that he started the lap losing a few tenths, which cost him the position to where he should’ve been.
“Regardless, it’s good to see the gaps are closer. This is the first step in fighting back to the front of the midfield. We’ve started from a long way back but there’s some good performance coming across the remainder of the season and with Carlos, Alex and the team, I’m confident we won’t stop fighting for points on every occasion that comes our way."
Carlos Sainz:
“We were only 0.1s off P11, so it’s clear this Miami upgrade is a positive step for the team. We’re still getting to grips with the new package, and our execution has room for improvement, so there was some laptime left on the table. Tomorrow, we should be able to have some fun in the midfield and possibly be in reach of the points if the weather mixes things up.
“Lastly, it’s been sad to hear about the passing of Alex Zanardi today. He kept his sporting passion intact despite so many obstacles and he deserves a lot of respect and admiration from the motorsport community. My thoughts are with his friends and family.”
Alex Albon:
"In the Sprint race today, we had decent pace but ultimately we decided to pit and trial out some options with the front wing to learn more ahead of qualifying. The upgrades the team has worked tirelessly on have us in a more competitive place and we need to continue to make steps forward. In qualifying, we had inconsistency with deployment combined with some traffic, so I started my lap on the back foot. Overall, we have a better car and good race pace for tomorrow, and the weather forecast for the race could also shake things up so we’ll see what tomorrow brings."
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