Report: Leaving Miami with a double points finish
Both cars back in the points following Formula 1's return in Miami after a five-week break
Published
03 MAY 2026
Est. reading time
4 min
Atlassian Williams Formula 1 Team picked up three more points after grand prix racing resumed with the 2026 Miami Grand Prix.
A formation flying finish of Carlos Sainz in P9 and Alex Albon in P10 saw the team stride forwards from our qualifying positions, and our opening three rounds of the year.
Many of those positions came on a busy opening lap, where a Turn 2 spin for Max Verstappen scattered the midfield drivers trying to avoid a collision.
The Red Bull driver ended up battling with both Carlos, and then Alex in the subsequent laps, sending late-braking moves at Turn 17 in frantic wheel-to-wheel battling.
Alex took advantage of the Dutch driver's first fight with Carlos to take two positions at the end of the opening tour, as Albono became the lead FW48 in the early stages.
Multiple incidents took out three cars from the race on Lap 6 to trigger an early Safety Car, with a further mechanical retirement to leave 18 cars on track for the remaining 51 laps.
A lengthy slowdown had racing resume on Lap 12, with Alex and Carlos running P8 and P9 after Verstappen opted to pit in the slowdown.
Carlos made an overtake at Turn 11 a few laps after the restart, and more fights with Verstappen followed as the fresh-tyre car passed Alex, then Carlos to see our pair sitting P9 and P10.
With forecasts suggesting rain could affect the race, the team chose to continue running on the Mediums until a small shower cell passed by.
Alex stopped first for Hards, with Carlos following suit one lap later on Lap 28 for the only two stops of our day.
The second stint was a much simpler affair, with the two cars initially running close as Carlos exited the pit lane and ahead of the Haas duo.
Although Ollie Bearman did stay close to Alex for some laps, a mistake had him fall back, eventually crosing the line 10 seconds adrift of Albon, who was in turn 9 seconds behind Carlos.
James Vowles, Team Principal:
"Well done to the team. It's great to see the hard work of the last five weeks, and the aero package all adding up, putting us in stronger place than we started the season. It's still a long road, but the positive news is that there's more performance to come throughout the rest of the season.
Alex and Carlos worked incredibly well as a team today and as a result secured the best positions we could have. We stopped Alex first, which is different to what we would normally do, to ensure that he got ahead of Bearman and secured the points for the team. We have a couple of weeks now until Canada, and I’m looking forward to racing hard for the rest of the season."
Carlos Sainz:
“Another very solid Sunday. I had a strong start and managed to position myself in contention for points. The pace from there was very good, the race was well-executed, and we were comfortably in the midfield fight.
We’ve made progress over the early break, and the team has worked hard to bring this upgrade to the car. It shows how much we can achieve when we get our heads down, but this is still very far from where we want to be. Our aim is to keep up the good work and try score points regularly.”
Alex Albon:
"It has been a difficult start to the season, so it is great to bring home a double points finish, which is a strong result for the team. We had a good start and I made up some positions within the first three laps, and the upgrades also seemed to run well allowing us to properly fight in the midfield.
There is more to unlock with performance and we’ve been experimenting all weekend with setups; there is still a bit to go in terms of understanding the new package, but we’ll keep pushing. Miami as a track tends to suit us, so we need to turn our attention to Montreal now and extracting the most out of another Sprint weekend."
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