Sainz admits Williams are second-bottom in F1 as Aston Martin pulls clear

Carlos Sainz has conceded that Williams are effectively the second-slowest team in Formula 1 right now, sitting ahead of only Cadillac in terms of race pace, following another fruitless weekend at Zandvoort where both he and Alexander Albon finished at the back of the field.

The team had made a modest start to F1’s new technical era, collecting 11 points across the opening six rounds and sitting eighth in the constructors’ standings after Monaco. But since Sainz finished 12th in Barcelona, no Williams driver has bettered 15th, and the team has repeatedly failed to escape Q1.

“We are pretty much where we expected, which is towards the back,” Sainz said. “We are only quicker than Cadillac at the moment. You saw the Astons in race pace — they are a different league right now. So we couldn’t fight them. We couldn’t fight anyone, really.”

The contrast with Aston Martin was stark at Zandvoort. While both AMR26s were knocked out in Q1 alongside the Williams cars, Fernando Alonso converted a one-stop strategy into ninth place on Sunday. Albon and Sainz, meanwhile, drifted to the rear of the pack.

Albon highlighted a compounding problem: the sheer volume of blue flags the Williams drivers are forced to navigate mid-race. “You can’t imagine in the middle of the race how many blue flags you get,” he said. “I literally mean that every other lap is a blue flag.”

He explained how an early pit stop left him stranded behind midfield cars that had boxed specifically to avoid being lapped, only for those same cars — on fresh tyres — to close him down within laps. “Within five laps, the cars that just pitted in front of you are already behind you,” Albon said. Much of his frustration centred on Gabriel Bortoleto, whose Audi rejoined just behind Albon on lap 34 and needed only eight laps to catch and pass him.

Perhaps most concerning for Williams is that neither driver believes relief is imminent. Monza and Baku — circuits that have historically suited the Mercedes-powered FW48 — are approaching on the calendar, yet Sainz offered little optimism. “If you look at the last five races, this is where we’ve been,” he said. “It is where we are.”

The admission is a significant fall from grace for a team that scored a podium in Azerbaijan last season. With the 2026 regulations having reshuffled the grid, Williams appear to have lost more ground than most, and their drivers are making no effort to disguise it.