Williams in the News: Sainz’s season so far, FW47 development and the F1 movie premiere

Atlassian Williams Racing experienced a weekend of mixed fortunes at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Carlos Sainz climbed impressively from a P16 starting position to claim a point by finishing 10th — but there was disappointment for Alex Albon, who was forced into an early retirement after experiencing power unit problems.

The team as a whole can be buoyed by an impressive campaign to date, though, with a total of 55 points putting us fifth in the Constructors’ Standings.

As attention now turns to the Austrian GP in just over a week’s time, here’s what the media have been saying about Williams in the last few days…

Carlos sat down for an interview with The Telegraph ahead of last weekend’s visit to Montreal.

The 30-year-old discussed a range of topics, including an honest assessment of how his season is progressing so far.

“I think the truth is there’s good and bad, like always,” he explained.

“The good is that myself and the team have done a very big step forward during these first nine races and everything is trending in the right direction.

“My adaptation process has been really good. I’m quick with the car. I feel like out of everyone that’s changed teams, I’m doing reasonably well in being quick with a new team and a new car and I don’t think my points [tally] reflects what we deserve.

“But at the same time, we haven’t yet put a big result together on a Sunday. There have been different reasons for that — whether it’s been my mistake, the team’s mistake, just bad luck — but clearly we haven’t extracted a really big result out of the season yet. But I feel like this is just about to come.”

CS55 also spoke about his desire to remain at Grove for the foreseeable future, saying:

“You look at Charles [Leclerc], or George [Russell], or a Max [Verstappen], or a Lando [Norris]... even you can see the progress of Oscar [Piastri] over three seasons, you know?

“I strongly believe to execute your best level in Formula 1, you need to be in a team for four or five years. You need people to understand the way you work, you need that bond with every engineer, you need the team to back you and give you that long-term stability.”

The Madrid native later added: “If this project keeps going in the direction it’s going, I’m not lying that this is the place where I want to be in the long term.

“We have a big test next year [with the new regulations]. But already talking to JV [James Vowles] and senior staff, I like what I see. I like where we’re trending.

“There’s a good vibe around Williams, around its management, around the targets, and I think James and his whole team are managing to get everyone on the same page.”

Team Principal James Vowles was asked how much development of the FW47 we can expect over the coming months, in a video interview with Canadian channel The Sports Network (TSN).

“We took this car out of the wind tunnel on 2nd January [and started] working on next year's car, but — and there is a but — a lot of the steps we've been making through the season are just optimizing the package we have, rethinking it through, using other tools and systems available to us,” he said.

“So there is a little bit more to come. It'll come, probably, post August break, [because] we just need a little bit of time to work through it.

“But it won't be big. The reality behind it — what I'm looking for is — is the base strong enough that we can still develop and work around it? Which it seems to be at the moment, such that even post other people's upgrades, we're able to fight. And for the time being, that seems to hold up.”

The aforementioned TSN interview with James also featured a section on the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed, with the 45-year-old discussing how he’s had to get in shape to drive Williams’ iconic FW14B this July.

That car was originally driven by Nigel Mansell, of course, and he will be returning to pilot it once again at Goodwood — as well as a fully restored FW11 from 1986, as reported by Formula1.com.

Finally, Alex, Carlos and James were in attendance at the premiere of ‘F1: The Movie’ in New York, as the glitz and glamour of F1 and Hollywood collided on Monday night.

Photos of the Williams duo on the red carpet — with Alex accompanied by his partner Lily Muni He — featured in GQ and Vogue.