Report: Work to do after tough Saturday in Barcelona

Neither Carlos or Alex can reach Q3 in the first Barcelona-Catalunya GP qualifying

Published

13 JUN 2026

Est. reading time

3 min

There is work to do for Atlassian Williams Formula 1 Team to do if Carlos Sainz or Alex Albon are to continue our points-scoring Sundays after early exits from qualifying.

The first Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix will see Carlos starting from P16 and Alex from P18 after our cars couldn’t find the speed to reach the top-10 Q3 shootout.

For Carlos, racing on home soil, he reached Q2 after a strong final push lap in the first part of qualifying to see him jump up to the all-important P16 in the dying moments.

Once there, his 1:17.827 time couldn’t advance him any higher for a final grid slot, but he’ll be looking to make any opportunities count in the race tomorrow.

For Alex, it was a 1:17.424 lap in Q1 that represented his best of his qualifying efforts, but that sadly wasn’t enough to advance higher.

It was, however, a big jump from his initial 1:18.252 effort on a day where he was repeatedly trying to find grip at Turn 9 after struggled in FP3 earlier on.

The team now will check the data to and strategy options to see where we might find time Sunday’s grand prix, where the weekend’s high temperatures are set to continue.

From a home hero to a comic book hero:

AWF1 Team x Marvel - Iron Man: Racing Towards Doom Monaco Special Edition Cover

Limited Edition

AWF1 Team x Marvel - Iron Man: Racing Towards Doom Monaco Special Edition Cover

···

Limited Edition

AWF1 Team x Marvel - Iron Man: Racing Towards Doom Miami Special Edition Cover

···

James Vowles, Team Principal:

"We knew this would be a difficult weekend coming here, and unfortunately that has proven to be the case. We haven’t been good in Barcelona for the last few years, and despite large changes to the regulations that remains the case, so we need to dig deeper to understand the issues. We know the car is still not on the weight limit, and in these very warm temperatures that has an extraordinarily large impact on the performance, but that’s not all of it and over the next few weeks and months we need to find all of it because it will impact us at other circuits. Well done to both Alex and Carlos for doing their utmost with the package we have here today. We have sacrificed qualifying for the race and kept a strong allocation of tyres, so let’s see what opportunities arise."

Carlos Sainz:

"We maximised everything we had today and reached our target of getting into Q2, which is an honest reflection of where we are at this track. We used all our new tyres in Q1 which left us with not much more to extract in Q2, so improving P16 was not possible.

"We’ll be going into tomorrow with a fresh mindset as we know anything can happen here. On pure pace, points aren’t on the table, but this track is hard on everyone’s machinery and strategy can make a big difference. We'll be ready to take any opportunity that comes. It's been a tricky weekend so far, but feeling the support of the Spanish fans has been incredible. I'll give them everything I have tomorrow."

Alex Albon:

"It's been a difficult weekend, more so than it should have been. The balance has felt completely disconnected - we were sliding a lot, fighting both axles, and every time I went into a corner it felt different. There was no rhythm and no real consistency in laps to build on, which is disappointing because we knew this track would be a challenge, but not fully to this extent. Carlos managed to find a bit more than I did in qualifying, so we'll look at that data tonight and try to understand what was going wrong. On pure pace, points aren't really on the table tomorrow, but there is high tyre deg here so there will be plenty of pit stops and a lot of different strategies in play."

Essentials

Latest

Report: Work to do after tough Saturday in Barcelona

Neither Carlos or Alex can reach Q3 in the first Barcelona-Catalunya GP qualifying