Williams Racing group principal James Vowles believes Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon’s working relationship was as robust from “minute one” because it was on the finish of the season and championed the duo for serving to the group transfer up the grid for subsequent yr.
Sainz joined the Grove outfit in 2025 after being changed at Ferrari by seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. In his first season with Williams, the Spanish driver secured two podium finishes in Azerbaijan and Qatar, which had been additionally the primary podiums below Vowles’s management.
Albon has been with Williams since 2022 and has pushed alongside the likes of Nicholas Latifi, Logan Sargeant and Franco Colapinto.
“From the very, very first check that we did in Bahrain collectively, all over Melbourne the place we see Carlos wasn’t within the automobile however capable of assist the group, all over different races the place the 2 of them had been working collectively very freely by way of debrief information set-up path, it has been a relationship that really from minute one was as robust because it was on the finish of the season,” the group chief stated throughout The Vowles Verdict.
“And generally that may change group on group topic to the pressures the drivers are feeling, the group is feeling. That did not change something right here in any respect. And it is only a signal of each of them being completely prime sportsmen in their very own proper.
“However two, that is about our journey again to the entrance. And so we’re not getting caught up within the particulars of who completed the place at which race. It is about how does the group transfer ahead?
“So, good examples I can present you: If we go all the way in which again to Melbourne, Alex truly discovered a method of driving the Williams, which is barely completely different to the Ferrari, particularly via Flip 3. It is a method of getting it rotated within the nook working the set-up and his psyche was very open with Carlos after FP1, as soon as Carlos kind of got here in and commented he was unable to observe a sure line.
Carlos Sainz, Williams, Alexander Albon, Williams, James Vowles, Staff Principal, Williams
Picture by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Photos by way of Getty Photos
“That was the very first race, the beginning of that relationship, and it carried on via the season. There have been subtleties to a Williams automobile that Alex was capable of assist Carlos with. The identical in converse. What we did about midway via the yr is begin to break up the set-ups fairly otherwise between the 2 automobiles as a result of each drivers are inside milliseconds of one another.
“However it allowed us to search out two completely different instructions, and it is the sincere suggestions that comes again after the follow session that drives then the unified set-up. In order that’s the way it constructed and it’ll preserve constructing into subsequent yr and past.”
Williams completed the season fifth within the constructors’ standings with 137 factors, 45 factors forward of Racing Bulls in sixth.
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