Alex Albon admits that William’s focus is on 2026, which means the team will be bringing limited upgrades to the FW47 as they prioritise the new regulations.
Since James Vowles’ move to become team principal of the Williams Racing team, he has been open about how much at the Grove-based team wasn’t working. He began by restructuring the team completely, removing waste – notably a 20,000 cell Excel spreadsheet with all of the parts of the car listed.
In 2024, this meant that the team arrived in Bahrain for testing, late and incredibly overweight. Although they managed to fix a lot of the fundamental issues with the car, it wasn’t until the end of the season that they found themselves able to fight for points.
Now with Carlos Sainz joining the team and Atlassian signing the largest sponsorship deal in William’s history, the team’s chances seem to be shifting. In testing, the Grove team seemed to have impressive speed. It put them far higher in people’s predictions than last year.
However, Alex Albon warns that the team’s focus is going to be on 2026 which means as the season progresses William’s may suffer from a lack of upgrades.
Albon’s warnings
Albon was asked during testing if William’s are expecting more updates for 2025 than the team had in 2024. He said,
“I think the big focus is on next year. The more time you take doing updates and upgrades for this year, the more you’re going to jeopardise next year. You’re going to reduce the personnel that you can spend on that car.“
“The aim for us is to be a top team and to do that. But we’re not going to spend too much time focusing on this year’s car.”
Williams will be looking to make the most of whatever performance they’ve unlocked before teams start bringing upgrades. However, they likely won’t be wildly outpaced by other teams as it seems many of the mid to back field teams are setting their focus on 2026.
Albon also expressed his positivity over the FW47 and the position the team are starting the season this year versus last. He said, “I think there’s just some new things, new software, new areas to focus on. Which has changed a little bit the balance of the car.”
“As you can see, I think, just as a general feeling, the car’s in a much better position than last year. There are some areas where we’re just getting caught up and nothing we can’t fix.”
“We made some changes last night to today which has made a step. It hasn’t solved everything completely so there’s still some work to do.”
Williams are trying to make that move to the front of the field and they’re hoping that 2026 will be the year to do it.
Feature Image Credit: Atlassian Williams Racing
