![\"Dutch](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c75a548e-0ab7-4151-8e44-a54fafcb7f8c.jpeg\" "\\"Dutch")
<\/p>\nLast week\u2019s confirmation from Williams that both Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon have extended their deals showed faith in the team and its management.<\/p>\n
This has been a poor season for an outfit that finished an impressive fifth in the World Championship last season, and even logged podium finishes. Sainz and Albon anticipated that in 2026 at the very least they would be at the head of the chasing pack behind the top four teams. However, that\u2019s not how it has turned out.<\/p>\n
The team got its sums badly wrong with the FW48 amid the transition to the new regulations. The car was completed so late that Williams had to miss the crucial first test, and when it finally ran it was slow, in large part because it was significantly overweight.<\/p>\n
Heading into the summer break, the team lay P9 in the points, ahead of only Aston Martin and Cadillac \u2013 and in Hungary upgrades moved the previously struggling Aston ahead on pure performance.<\/p>\n
Both drivers could thus be forgiven for looking at other future options, especially Sainz. He was a winner with Ferrari a couple of years ago, and having been ousted to make way for Lewis Hamilton, he is eager to get back into a car that gives him a shot at fighting for victories.<\/p>\n
In the end, both drivers put their short-term frustrations behind them and decided to stay, having heard what team principal James Vowles had to say about the way forward.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
David Davies – PA Images\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Asked by Road & Track if he\u2019d been concerned about losing one or the other of his drivers, Vowles made it clear that was indeed the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cConcerned about losing both,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause they are World Championship material drivers that deserve the opportunity to be fighting for podiums or more, and we haven\u2019t delivered that. And more than that, we had a scope of where we were moving to. I hope there\u2019s no doubt to the outside world that over the last few years, we\u2019ve been slowly stepping forward. With last year being a blip, I think too positive from where we were, but a step in the right direction. So for us to move backward isn\u2019t just a surprise to the drivers; it\u2019s a surprise to everyone, and that will always create risk that you lose them.\u201d<\/p>\n
To their credit, Sainz and Albon saw a bigger picture than Williams\u2019 2026 form, and both also realized that they have their own part to play in turning things around.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m thankful for is the moment we had problems, they stood by our side,\u201d said Vowles. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t finger-pointing. It was actually, \u2018Tell me what I can do,\u2019 and they both came into the factory, spoke to the whole organization, and gave them a lift. Carlos did the same, and Alex did the same this week. Once they re-signed, they wanted to make sure that they were here with the team. They want this to be a part of them that is here on a turnaround of this organization, and I\u2019m thankful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vowles gave an incredible sales pitch to Sainz in the summer of 2024 to persuade him to join. So what did he have to do two years on in order to convince him to stay?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we demonstrated to him is everything that happened this winter,\u201d said Vowles. \u201cEverything that we are doing right now to fix it, the corner that we\u2019ve turned as a result of it, and what the future looks like. And there\u2019s zero doubt about it. We are way off where we wanted to be. We have a car that was overweight, late, and not the performance specification that we wanted it to be. So those are just facts. What Carlos wanted to see, and Alex for that matter, is the changes that we are doing that show us that that\u2019s the right trajectory to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"F1](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/f9f3bbf6-4251-451e-97ee-2141ab31ebba.jpeg\" "\\"F1")
NurPhoto\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Carlos Sainz at the British Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Sainz was particularly frustrated when a much-heralded front wing update for the British Grand Prix didn\u2019t appear to yield results, but ultimately that hasn\u2019t discouraged him from staying.<\/p>\n
\u201cSilverstone was an unfortunate blip,\u201d Vowles insisted. \u201cIt\u2019s been a really difficult season. Whatever happens, we\u2019re turning up at the tracks and just not where we want to be, and not even able to score points now. But what Carlos can see, and Alex especially, because he\u2019s been here since \u201922, is you just wind back six months, 12 months, and then you wind forward what we\u2019re doing over the next six, and it\u2019s a combination of people, process, system, structures \u2013 it\u2019s not one thing – and it shows them that we are on the right path. There are just elements of this year that the pain we caused ourselves this winter has had an impact, probably all the way across \u201926 to be completely frank.\u201d<\/p>\n
That path involved aggressive recruitment for key personnel. They include the recently arrived Piers Thynne, who has the unusual job title of Chief Optimization and Planning Officer. In essence it\u2019s a COO role, overseeing the factory and production and so on. He has come from a similar job at McLaren, where he played a big part in the team\u2019s return to winning form.<\/p>\n
Keeping both drivers will also help Williams to progress, because continuity always helps. There\u2019s also the boost that everyone in the camp has now been given \u2013 had one or the other driver jumped ship, it would\u2019ve been a blow to the team\u2019s collective confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s incredibly important,\u201d said Vowles. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you everything that\u2019s going on behind the scenes, but I can tell them. And if they are re-signing, it will give you an indication that there\u2019s a lot of change ongoing, that they believe in what the future looks like. And that belief is incredibly important, whether it\u2019s for team members, or for anyone in the outside world. The team is really maturing and changing, and as much as you can keep consistent, especially in your driver line-up, it becomes desperately important in order to keep building on that. The best way to summarize it to you is the factory \u2013 there\u2019s a weight lifted off it this week, and I\u2019ve seen them move forward at much faster pace as results. So the belief is real and tangible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week\u2019s confirmation from Williams that both Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon have extended their deals showed faith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,183855,782,301309,784,578,576,577,237154,1642,301308,273948,82],"class_list":["post-867379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-collection-motorsport","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-f1e01851-fcbf-4a29-bb10-27acc4d8fbdd","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-shorttitle-how-vowles-kept-sainz-and-albon-at-williams","tag-sponsored-false","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}