Report: Limited progress in the Austrian heat

An uphill battle in the Styrian Alps and we depart Spielberg with no points

Published

28 JUN 2026

Est. reading time

4 min

The 2026 Austrian Grand Prix proved to be another difficult race for Atlassian Williams F1 Team, with only one car reaching the chequered flag.

Alex Albon came home in P17, while Carlos Sainz suffered a PUS issue on lap 24 after gaining three places following a strong opening stint.

Starting from the ninth row of the grid, it was always going to be an uphill battle in the Styrian Alps, but both drivers made a clean start and gained a position on the opening lap.

With Carlos starting on the soft compound, he spent much of the early stages pressuring Oliver Bearman’s Haas before pitting at the end of lap 14 in an attempt to undercut.

Meanwhile, Alex - who had gone wheel-to-wheel with Sergio Perez in the opening laps - settled into running behind his teammate and made gains by extending his opening stint until lap 18.

Unfortunately, a sudden PU issue on Carlos’ FW48 brought his afternoon to an early end on lap 24 and triggered the first Virtual Safety Car.

With our final challenger in the race, attention turned to Alex, whose pace was comparable to both Haas cars and the Alpine of Franco Colapinto, all running on similar strategies.

Alex made his final stop on lap 38, switching to the hard compound to take him through to the finish.

The remainder of his afternoon was spent battling briefly with Colapinto and closing in on Esteban Ocon.

A second brief VSC was deployed on lap 52 after Alex struck the Turn 3 bollard, and once racing resumed, he continued to close in on Ocon.

Having been almost 10 seconds behind, the gap reduced to as little as 1.4s at times, although it fluctuated frequently as both drivers dealt with blue flags for the leaders.

Ultimately, Alex crossed the line in P17, just 2.1s behind the Haas. Attention now turns to our home race at Silverstone Circuit next weekend.

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James Vowles, Team Principal:

“It was a tough day in these warmer conditions, with the car not in the place we need it to be at the moment - we were simply unable to fight for points. For Carlos, unfortunately, it looks like we may have had a PU issue, which resulted in the car shutting down on the straight. We will investigate the fault, however Mercedes have always been incredible at making sure we bring performance and reliability, so I have no doubt we'll be in a strong place come next week. “What I was pleased to see is our pit stops were on point today. Well done to the team, who have been working diligently over the last 6 months - the dividends from that are paying off. “Looking ahead, Silverstone is one of the races where we're bringing small upgrades and hope to take a step forward relative to the field. It's at difficult times like this that we pull together, reset, and come back swinging."

Alex Albon:

“It’s been a poor weekend overall; we simply did not have the pace to compete with the midfield. We struggled with tyre deg and lacked pace throughout the medium and high-speed corners, so there is plenty to analyse ahead of the next race. We are currently experimenting and covering every avenue to find performance before our upgrades arrive. Looking ahead to Silverstone, we’ll bring a small upgrade package that we hope will move us closer to the likes of Haas and VCARB, so we’re hopeful these updates will be the start of us moving in the right direction."

Carlos Sainz:

"We had better race pace today than in practice but ultimately, we’re still quite far off the pace of our rivals. We made a few changes which made the car more drivable, and we were fighting cars we did not expect to fight, which is a positive sign. However, sadly a PU issue meant my car suddenly switched off. It's clear we are not where we want to be in terms of performance, but we’re bringing a small upgrade to Silverstone which will hopefully put us back in a more competitive position.”

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