Report: A tough Barcelona-Catalunya GP

Carlos and Alex leave Spain without scoring points

Published

14 JUN 2026

Est. reading time

4 min

Carlos Sainz finished in P12 whilst Alex saw the flag as a non-classified finisher at the Barcelona-Catalunya GP.

The Atlassian Williams Formula 1 Team will look to bounce back stronger when the sport returns in Austria after the Spanish circuit highlighted struggles with the car.

Nonetheless, both drivers gave it their all amid the tough circumstances, bringing both cars to the flag in a race of attrition throughout the field.

Starting from P16 and P18, a split strategy saw Carlos begin the race on soft Pirelli rubber while Alex took the more popular medium compound.

The decision worked for Carlos, who advanced to P13 over the opening tour as others struggled to get off the line.

Alex, meanwhile, remained in P18 and battling with Gabriel Bortoleto through lap 1, but could not go further up the order.

Isack Hadjar, who dropped back off the start line, quickly moved through the field to demote Carlos to P14 as the race settled down.

The pit stop phase saw a shuffling of the order, with Alex stopping first for hard tyres on Lap 14 and Carlos following suit one lap later.

A mixture of strategies saw the cars fighting the Audi and Haas cars, with Carlos’ fellow Spanish representative Fernando Alonso also making a cameo appearance with a long first stint.

However, points looked out of reach, with the Alpine driver pairing staying out of reach for Carlos, who reached P13 once most runners had stopped.

Further pit stops again shuffled the order, but Alex soon made an unscheduled stop to repair his T-cam, which had become loose in the race.

He later returned to track ten laps down on the leaders with soft tyres to gather data for the team, immediately setting personal best times, but ultimately unable to have any impact in the race.

For Carlos, two VSC periods punctuated his final half of this Barcelona-Catalunya GP, with others choosing to stop during the first slowdown leaving him to fight Arvid Lindblad, Ollie Bearman, Esteban Ocon, and Gabriel Bortoleto.

Fresh tyres helped Lindblad pass, but Carlos fended off the challenge of the Haas and Audi until a late-race pit stop for mediums dropped him back behind Bortoleto, who he promptly passed on track with his extra grip.

Three retirements in a single VSC changed the positions further, with Carlos reaching P12 by the end of a long Sunday drive, with Alex not classified and 11 laps behind the leaders by the end.

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James Vowles, Team Principal:

“An incredibly difficult Barcelona. The positives are that there is some evidence of what we need to review in terms of car setup and balance for future learning. Well done to Alex and Carlos, who really did a fantastic job all weekend to extract everything they could from the car.

“For Carlos there was potentially one more place in it if we had everything perfect and the VSC hadn’t come out, but that’s where the car pace lies and he did the best he could with it. In the case of Alex, we are going to thoroughly review his car because I don’t believe we are giving him the best package possible so we will dig into that to improve it for future races. This track is an outlier, we have Austria in two weeks, and our focus is on fighting back for points again.

“Well done to Lewis. I caught up with him in Monaco and it is great to see the spring back in his step. He drove a brilliant qualifying, and a brilliant race. Well deserved.”

Carlos Sainz:

"Overall, a frustrating weekend for the team. I had a very good start, strong tyre management and did everything I could with our race pace today. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to fight for points although I feel like we maximised everything the car had to give. Ultimately, we need to understand why this track exposes us so much and solve those core characteristics so we’re better prepared for other tracks like it.

"A huge thank you to the Spanish fans here. The support this weekend was something special, and I can't wait to race again in Spain, in Madrid, later on in the season.”

Alex Albon:

"It's been a tough weekend, but I think we did learn some things. We were already struggling in the race before the camera issue - the tyre deg in this heat was really hurting us, and there's something deeper going on with the car that we need to get to the bottom of. When we had to pit to fix the camera, we used the time to make some changes and got back out there, but at that point it had become a testing session. It's been a run of bad luck recently, but we'll keep working to figure out what's wrong and come back stronger as a team in Austria."

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