Sainz hails 'strong start' with 'aligned Williams' eyeing '26 challenge ahead

At Williams, attention is very much on the 2026 campaign, when a new set of regulations kick in, that could reshuffle the entire grid order.

At a new team, getting settled in is important. Answering GPblog's question, the Spaniard talked about his experience of working together with his new teammate, Albon, and his new team principal, James Vowles.

"Yes, it's been a very strong start to our time together in terms of the way we want to develop the team, the car. The interactions with Alex, with James, I think we are honestly all very aligned and very optimistic moving forward," he began.

However, as Sainz underlined their focus is indeed on 2026, they cannot yet take advantage of that just yet.

"The problem is we are stuck in the middle of a year where we cannot actually develop a car that has some very good strengths but also some very clear weaknesses. So it's not like we can exploit the feedback of the two drivers and the intentions that we have to develop this car, what we need, because we are not putting it in the wind tunnel to develop [it]," the Spaniard continued.

"So yes, that's where next year is going to be a lot more challenging for the team, and for ourselves to see if we can actually improve the main weaknesses of this car that are very clear in tracks like this," Sainz concluded.

So far in 2025, the Williams driver scored 16 points with his team. Williams are currently in fifth place in the constructors', 18 points ahead of Aston Martin.