Carlos Sainz has explained that, despite celebrating their first double points finish of the season in Miami, Williams have set themselves \u201chigher expectations\u201d and are focused on recovering performance after their lacklustre start to 2026.<\/p>\n
As one of the first teams to switch their focus to the change of regulations this year, there were hopes that Williams<\/a> would take a significant step towards the front of the grid, especially after they finished fifth in last year\u2019s Constructors\u2019 Championship.<\/p>\n However, they have made no secret of the fact that their challenger is overweight and they have a lot of performance to find following just one points finish in the opening three races, when Sainz<\/a> placed ninth in China while his team mate Alex Albon<\/a> failed to make the start.<\/p>\n The Spaniard matched his best result at the Miami Grand Prix<\/a> after gaining four positions over the 57-lap evvent, but he was keen to emphasise that the tail end of the points is not where Williams want to be battling.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very solid race for me,\u201d Sainz said after the race. \u201cI had a great start and then was unfortunate with a couple of moments there on Lap 1 that put me on the back foot, but then I managed to recover those positions.<\/p>\n \u201cI started recovering and settling into my pace. Showed extremely good pace today \u2013 quicker than the midfield, still a step behind the Alpine but much better and a much more straightforward performance that puts us in a very solid position today.<\/p>\n \u201cI think P9 and fighting for the points half a second behind Alpine is not what the team wanted, what the team expected, so even though we\u2019ve taken a massive step forward this weekend, it\u2019s still not what we\u2019re capable of doing. We need to keep digging deep because I think we set ourselves higher expectations and we want to live up to them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have a good part of the year to recover it. It just shows that when you do things well and we all work well, we manage to bring a car here that allows the two drivers to score points. We need to keep going in this direction because I\u2019m sure this team can recover from a bad moment.\u201d<\/p>\n