Moving from Ferrari — where podium finishes came regularly — to Williams, where point finishes are a luxury, would have been a tough decision for Carlos Sainz to take. The Spaniard walked in with no fancy expectations either.
His aim was clear — to guide the team toward a better future — one that it is no stranger to, thanks to its glorious championship-winning past. That is a work in progress and still in nascent stages.
Sainz, who realizes where the team stands, never expected to start the 2025 season with a Q3 appearance at the Australian GP qualifying. As fate would have it, it’s not just him starting the season-opening race in the top 10 but also his teammate Alex Albon.
After three impressive practice sessions, the Williams duo continued to punch above their weight in qualifying. Resultantly, Albon starts the race on Sunday in P6 with Sainz in P10. While the former Ferrari driver admits it was a “scrappy” qualifying for him, the car has certainly overshot his expectations.
“If you would have told us three months ago that we would have one car P6 and the other P10, we would have definitely taken it. So congrats to the whole team and to everyone involved. At the same time I had a bit of a scrappy qualifying,” F1 journalist Adam Cooper quoted him as saying after the qualifying.
‘@Carlossainz55 on P10: “If you would have told us three months ago that we would have one car P6 and the other P10, we would have definitely taken it. So congrats to the whole team and to everyone involved. At the same time I had a bit of a scrappy qualifying.”
— Adam Cooper (@adamcooperF1) March 15, 2025
Though not as impressive, Williams started the 2024 season on a promising note as well. That run was, however, hampered by frequent crashes, often multiple times over a race weekend.
James Vowles & Co. will be wary of repeating that with a far improved and experienced driver lineup in 2025. That said, Williams seem to be on the right trajectory at the moment with Albon too praising the team.
“We finally got it”: Albon reveals how Williams overcame adversity
The Grove-based outfit did not have the best of starts to the weekend. Albon, speaking after qualifying, revealed that his FP1 session was marred by brake issues. That, he admits, rocked his confidence a bit as it felt the team was a session behind the rest. With persisting tire temperature issues, it wasn’t until Q3 that he really felt the car come alive.
“We finally got it. We were experimenting with all kinds of different things. Honestly, even to be able to say that we can experiment, knowing that we had a bit of pace to try different things is something quite new to me. Great to be in front of the Ferraris as well,” Albon said.
The Thai-British driver will start the race alongside Yuki Tsunoda in P5. The duo in the third row will have to sustain the pressure from the Ferrari pair, with Charles Leclerc set to start in P7 and Lewis Hamilton in P8.
While keeping those two behind throughout the race would be a tall ask, Williams certainly has an opportunity to score big points with both drivers early in the season.
