Report: Penultimate race of the European leg complete
Carlos Sainz brought the FW48 home in P13, while Alex Albon finished P17 after starting from the back of the field
Published
06 SEP 2026
Est. reading time
4 min
Race day at the Temple of Speed began with early drama after an initially clean start, Carlos Sainz was briefly up to P11 on the opening lap, before falling back to P16, with Alex Albon up to P18.
However the race was brought to an early halt on lap 3 when Charles Leclerc had a big off at Parabolica, bringing out the Safety Car and then a red flag as the barrier needed a full rebuild. Thankfully the Ferrari driver was able to walk away from the incident, whilst the rest of the field returned to the pit lane
After the first standing restart was aborted, the race got back underway around 15:45 local time and settled into a steady rhythm from there for both Atlassian Williams F1 Team cars.
Carlos and Alex both fitted new hard tyres under the red flag and had a quiet middle stint. A Virtual Safety Car on lap 28, deployed for Lance Stroll's stoppage, gave the team the chance to bring Carlos in for fresh mediums while Alex stayed out.
Alex's afternoon took a tougher turn as his hard tyres wore on. He reported a lack of front-end grip, and as a result, Nico Hulkenberg found a way past.
With Carlos forecast to catch his team-mate in the closing stages, the team asked Alex to swap positions before he pulled in for fresh softs on lap 47.
Carlos made the most of the clear track ahead, gaining on and eventually picking off Ollie Bearman around Curva Grande with three laps to go to move up to P13, eventually crossing the line there. Alex found himself a lap down behind the battling McLarens in the closing stages and brought the car home in P17.
All eyes now turn to Carlos’ home race and our first outing at the Madring for the Spanish Grand Prix next weekend.
Carlos Sainz
“First of all, happy to see Charles unharmed after such a big accident. On our side, we executed a good race today and a strong weekend overall given our limitations. We put together a solid qualifying yesterday and had a good start and race pace today. Boxing under the VSC got us ahead of Ocon with a great pit stop from our mechanics and good pace allowed us to overtake Bearman at the end. I'm now very much looking forward to Madrid next weekend.”
Alex Albon
“We tried to go long and make it on one set of hard tyres after the red flag, but inevitably had some degradation towards the end of the race. It was worth the gamble to try. Race pace was the best we’ve had in awhile, due to taking a new PU this weekend, but it also shows what we have underneath us and what we have to do to get to where we want to be. We need to review the strategy from today and see what we could’ve done differently - we had a decent race, but there are always things to tidy up. Madrid will be a completely different track, and it won’t be easy, but we’re looking forward to the challenge.”
James Vowles, Team Principal
“It was nice to see we had some pace in the race to be able to move up the order. We lost a few positions on the opening laps before the restart, which may have proved costly for our ability to score points today. But definitely some more clues coming out of the race about where we need to be looking, and working hard and diligently to keep finding performance.
“With Carlos, he drove a good race from start to finish, and that was about the best we could have achieved after the restart. With Alex, solid pace all day. We were unable to stop him under the VSC without significant loss of time, so we had to keep him out to the end, but we noticed some concerning vibrations on the front left, and given we weren't fighting for points, the priority at that point is making sure we have no issues.
Congratulations to Kimi - a very impressive result to come from the back to the front. Now looking forward to Madrid in just a few days' time.”
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