Vowles backs Williams progress despite Sainz and Albon losing points in Canada

Williams team principal James Vowles has defended his team’s trajectory after a difficult 2026 Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve left both drivers short of the points their pace deserved.

Coming off an encouraging performance step at the Miami Grand Prix, Williams arrived in Montreal with renewed confidence in the FW48’s upgrades. The underlying speed appeared to justify that optimism, but race day unravelled in two separate ways. Carlos Sainz was hurt by strategy calls and crossed the line ninth, while Alex Albon’s afternoon ended prematurely after a collision with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

“We didn’t get it all right today,” Vowles said in a post-race video on the team’s official channels. “There’s some decisions we clearly would have made differently with Carlos. And with Alex, no fault of his own, he absolutely had a point-scoring car and was in a position to do so before he was taken out in the race.”

Despite the setbacks, Vowles pointed to the broader picture as evidence of genuine forward momentum. “It’s great to see that across Miami and Canada, we’ve added performance successfully,” he said. “While we’re not where we want to be by any stretch of the imagination, we are able now to score points in these events when they’re available to us.”

The team principal was candid about the gap that still exists in the constructors’ standings, with Alpine and VCARB both ahead of Williams. “We’ve still got a big point deficit relative to Alpine, and in this circumstance, VCARB as well. But we are moving forward.”

Vowles also offered a cautiously optimistic outlook for Monaco, suggesting the circuit’s low-speed, high-downforce demands should suit the FW48’s current characteristics. “I think the car, again, should have a small step of performance, and it should be a track that we again have an opportunity to put our mark on it and see if we can be fighting in that top 10 position.”

Looking further ahead, he outlined a sustained development push intended to turn occasional points finishes into a consistent pattern. “Across the next six months, we have a really good, strong development that will bring performance to the track most weekends — to keep developing in that way and make sure we’re clawing our way back into a regular point-scoring position.”