Williams' boss highlights “one of the biggest changes” behind Carlos Sainz-Alex Albon’s F1 step-up

Carlos Sainz joined Williams ahead of the 2025 season as Ferrari signed Lewis Hamilton to replace the Spaniard. While the current Williams is no match for the Ferrari in terms of performance, Sainz believed in James Vowles' vision. The same has led to Williams making a big step-up in performance this year. Team Principal Vowles came out recently detailing the changes that led to the step-up.

Vowles signed with Williams ahead of the 2023 F1 season as the Team Principal after leaving Mercedes as a Motorsports Strategy Director. The 46-year-old was brought on board by Dorilton Capital, which took control of the historic F1 team after multiple years of struggle.

After finishing dead last in the 2022 championship, Williams finished 7th in 2023. Last year was a step back for the team, as the car was over the weight limit, and the spares weren't readily available (including when Alex Albon damaged the chassis at the Australian GP).

Nonetheless, coming into 2025, Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon and James Vowles have turned the fortunes around for the Grove-based team, who currently sit 5th in the standings with 70 points to their name (most points scored since the 2017 season).

F1 Grand Prix of Belgium - Source: Getty

With Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon teaming up and making Williams the best of the rest, Vowles came out and detailed the changes made since last year, which led to the significant step-up in performance. Speaking about the same, the Team Principal said (via Motorsportweek),

“One of the biggest fixes we’ve been putting in place for the last 24 months is making sure we can deliver from what we call concept or cradle to grave, but from concept to track as quickly as possible at the right cost level. And that’s one of the biggest changes. And you can see that with this year’s car. The car was on time. We had plenty of spares around us. We can develop multiple updates across the year.

“We’ve done multiple front wings, multiple packages. That’s a change if you look back at Williams’ history; that’s been one of the key changes. So on the weight limit, right product at the right time.”

James Vowles signed a multi-year contract extension with Williams last month and will lead Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon & the team into the new era of cars being introduced next year.

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“Fallen a little short”: Carlos Sainz details how Williams lost out in the current season by shifting focus to 2026

F1 will introduce new regulations starting in 2026, which will overhaul the current generation of cars. James Vowles came out in 2024 and was clear that the team would focus on the 2026 car as it's an opportunity to make a big performance jump. Carlos Sainz came out after the disappointing Hungarian GP and detailed that the shift in focus has left Williams a little short.

“The problem is that I think we've fallen a little short on development. So, for the second half of the season, I'm probably just going to look for consistency with the setup, consistency with the car, and just making sure we run clean weekends,” said Carlos Sainz (via Motorsport).

Alex Albon finished P15 at Hungary, a lap down on the leaders, with his teammate Carlos Sainz finishing just ahead of him in P14.