REPORT: More Points in Miami!

Alex Albon took P5 ahead of Carlos Sainz in P9 to earn Atlassian Williams Racing another twelve points for our 2025 tally – taking us to 37 points for the season, more than double our tally for the entirety of 2024.

Rain fell over the Miami International Autodrome in the morning ahead of the Grand Prix, washing the track green, and indeed threatened to fall again during the event. Predicting the Florida weather proved challenging, however, and in actuality the race stayed dry for its duration.

That didn't deprive it of action, however. Starting P6 and P7 on the grid, Carlos and Alex actually made contact with each other in the opening exchanges, as they attempted to avoid the fallout of scuffles further ahead.

There was no lasting damage, however, and the pair set about making forward progress as quickly as possible.

That progress was interrupted several times, though, as the opening exchanges saw three separate Virtual Safety Car appearances. The second of those proved most damaging for Carlos, as Charles Leclerc's Ferrari was afforded a cheap pit stop and managed to get out in between our FW47s, which had hitherto been running nose to tail all race long.

Carlos did manage to get Leclerc pretty quickly, but a third VSC period ended at an inopportune moment for our No.55, along the long back straight between Turns 16 and 17, and he was was eventually passed by both Leclerc and his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton into Turn 1.

Alex, meanwhile, managed to build a gap back to Kimi Antonelli in the Mercedes, and was keeping pace with many of the front running cars, providing yet more encouraging signs for the team ahead of the final three quarters of the season.

A P5 and P9 finish on track gave the team their best points haul in almost eight years – not since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017 have we taken as many points away from a single Grand Prix – and confidence will be high as we look towards Imola in two weeks' time.

James Vowles said, "It’s been a topsy turvy weekend, but I’m really pleased for the team with the result today. Given the setbacks we had yesterday morning, to come back fighting with both cars in the top ten in Qualifying, and to finish with both cars in the points is incredibly rewarding.

"It’s a long season and teams will bring updates so it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out over the next few races, but to score from five of the first six races is a different world to where we’ve been previously.

"I couldn’t be more proud of the team and the world class drivers we have. Alex and Carlos are really giving their all to this team and we are on a good pathway moving forwards."

Alex, meanwhile, added that he was glad he, "could reset and go again after yesterday! The car was quick and today was all about pure pace.

"I had a good rhythm all race and I’m very happy with the result. To be battling with the top teams, I can hardly believe it to be honest, when you look at where we were 12 months ago.

"This shows all the progress we’ve made at Grove and now we’ve shown the world that we can race at the top. This won’t happen every race and we’ll definitely have to keep fighting. For now, I’m going to enjoy it!"

Carlos admitted that he was, "not happy after a frustrating race. The operational misunderstanding of yesterday put us on the back-foot from the beginning as I had to start the race on a used compound.

"Avoiding Lando in Lap 1 when he rejoined the track unfortunately resulted in contact with Alex, which damaged my floor quite badly for the rest of the race. There was some miscommunication between our two sides of the garage that we will analyse internally, but to be honest, with the damage I had it was inevitable that I would end up losing positions.

"I did everything I could to hold on and stick with the cars ahead, but P9 was the final result. On a positive note, today we had very good pace and the balance of the car is the best it’s felt since the start of the season, so we’ll try to take the positives and review everything as a team."