A Breakthrough Weekend Masked by Mixed Fortunes in Baku
Williams arrived in Baku off the back of a quiet run and left with a genuine story to tell. The Williams upgrade Baku package sent the team into Q3 for the first time in the 2026 season, a real marker of progress after months scrapping in the midfield.
Carlos Sainz was the quicker of the two Williams drivers on Saturday, qualifying ninth. A grid penalty then dropped him to 14th, putting him behind team-mate Alex Albon before a wheel had turned in the race. Points followed anyway, the team’s first since Monaco, though only after a nervous Sunday. Albon’s own race ended early when he crashed out on lap 31, bringing out the safety car and turning a promising weekend into a mixed one by the flag.
For a team that has spent most of 2026 hunting scraps further down the order, a Saturday like that matters. What it means beyond one weekend is a different question.
Under the FW48 Skin: Aerodynamic Revamp and Weight Milestones
Williams have rebuilt a meaningful chunk of the car for this run of races. The headline change is an all-new chassis, finally built to the required minimum weight after a season of carrying ballast and compromise. Alongside it sits a new floor and a set of revised aerodynamic parts, the pieces that do most of the work generating downforce and controlling airflow underneath the car.
Getting the chassis onto weight is not a glamorous upgrade, but it is often the one that unlocks everything else. A car with weight to spare gives engineers room to place ballast wherever it helps balance and ride height, rather than simply hauling around unwanted mass. That kind of margin sits behind the sort of advanced aerodynamic development teams chase all season, even if it rarely shows up on a highlights reel.
Sainz’s early verdict, given after qualifying in comments carried by Motorsport.com’s report on the update, lines up with that reading. “Our initial feel is that the car feels just a bit quicker. But we were so far away that even though we’ve been bringing such a big upgrade, it still feels like we are playing a lot of catch-up. So as promised, no big massive surprises in terms of pace, a healthy step forward,” he said.
That is a fair summary of where Williams sit. They have not found the missing tenths in one go. They have found some of them, and built a base to find more.
Qualifying Pace Gains Versus Race Distance Fragility
Saturday told one story and Sunday told another. Sainz’s ninth-placed lap showed the upgraded car is competitive over a single lap in Baku’s low-drag conditions, where long straights reward a car that can run light wings without bleeding time in the corners. That is exactly the sort of layout that flatters a chassis still searching for outright downforce, and it raises a fair question about how much of Saturday’s gain was the car and how much was the track.
Baku has a habit of scrambling the usual pecking order. We saw it across the field in our look at technical balance during Baku qualifying, and Williams were not the only team whose one-lap pace looked stronger than their race pace turned out to be.
Sainz’s penalty undid much of Saturday’s work before the race even began, dropping him from ninth to 14th and behind Albon on the grid. Albon’s own afternoon ended prematurely too, his lap 31 crash triggering the safety car and closing out his race early. Points still arrived, Williams’ first since Monaco, but the picture over a full race distance was messier than one lap had suggested. Judged purely on the Williams upgrade Baku produced in qualifying trim, the step forward is real. Judged over a full grand prix, the jury is still out.
The Malaysia High-Downforce Test and Long-Term Package Outlook
Alex Albon was clear-eyed about what Baku did and did not prove. “This track, even without the upgrade, it would have favoured us. Malaysia will be telling to see where we are on a much more downforce-focused circuit. We’ve also got now a few days to actually understand the package. If you look at the big picture, we’ll make the car go faster in terms of optimising it. But we’ll be slower relative to the rest of the field, because that track will not suit us. Expect us to fall back in Malaysia, and then maybe in Singapore we can come somewhere in between,” he said.
That is about as honest an assessment as a driver gives mid-season. Baku’s low-drag layout let Williams lean on straight-line speed rather than outright downforce, and Albon is warning supporters not to read too much into one result. Malaysia’s high-downforce demands will test the new floor and aero parts properly, on a track where hiding a deficit is much harder. It echoes what Autosport’s coverage of the weekend made clear: a step forward, with the real test still to come.
Drivers being this candid about the limits of their own upgrade is not something we hear every week. That kind of honesty has run through driver feedback under current regulations all season, and it gives Williams supporters a realistic sense of what to expect next. Malaysia and Singapore, back to back, will show whether Baku was progress or a flattering exception.
