Tuesday\u2019s confirmation that Alex Albon will stay at Williams for 2027, and the similar news about Carlos Sainz that followed 24 hours later, represented a real statement of intent from the team.<\/p>\n
This has been a difficult season for the Grove-based outfit, especially in the slipstream of last year\u2019s superb fifth place in the Constructors\u2019 Championship.<\/p>\n
At the start of the campaign the FW48 was late, overweight and uncompetitive, and while the situation has improved, it is still nowhere near where the team want or need it to be, and the drivers have made their disappointment clear.<\/p>\n
However, in convincing both to stay on, Team Principal James Vowles<\/a> is also telling the wider world that \u2013 boosted by an ongoing recruitment drive \u2013 Williams<\/a> are still on target to achieve their goal of moving up the grid, using this year\u2019s disappointments as a springboard for improvements.<\/p>\n The unchanged line-up also represents a show of faith from Albon<\/a> and Sainz<\/a>, who both still believe in the team boss\u2019 vision.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many ways, it’s been a frustrating year,\u201d Albon admits. \u201cBut we’re confident with the work that we’re doing behind the scenes. You wish they didn’t happen on you, but sometimes these years like [the one] we’re having so far this year create a reaction from the team. It’s a time when is it a good reaction, or a bad reaction?<\/p>\n \u201cTo me this year has been extremely frustrating, but it’s been the first time, for example, where I really see us actually looking at these issues \u2013 deep, to a level that I feel like maybe we glossed over even last year. We were having good results, and the problems were still there, the DNAs of the car were still there.<\/p>\n \u201cBut this year it’s taken far more seriously to a much stronger level than ever before. This year is what I’m hoping is a blip, and of course next year I want to see that progress, and I want to see us back to what I believe is the potential of the team. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve re-signed.\u201d<\/p>\n So why does he think that 2026 is, as he terms it, just a blip?<\/p>\n “Because when I look at previous years to now, it felt, at least to me, like there was a constant progression,\u201d he insists. \u201cEven last year, we were for the most part a well-oiled midfield team. We were strong in our strategy, strong in understanding our weaknesses in our car.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still had the intrinsic DNA issues of our car. Of course, downforce helps hide a lot of those issues, and we’ve seen that this year when we took off the downforce, these problems get magnified.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it’s the fact that for me there was this constant rate of progression. And then this year, I’m not sure if it’s because we bit off a bit more than we can chew, but it does feel like we’ve taken a few steps back in some areas, and so we’re attacking those areas. That’s clear. I think the reaction from JV also, you see it with the people that we’re employing as well \u2013 there’s a clear direction.\u201d<\/p>\n