How Spain exposed Williams weakness that needs fixing despite 2026 F1 rules reset

Williams left Barcelona with more questions than answers, as familiar struggles resurfaced at a track that continues to highlight a key limitation the team must overcome ahead of Formula 1’s 2026 rules reset.

Both drivers were in the wars, with Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon each suffering front wing damage – Albon twice during the Spanish Grand Prix.

First, his front-end plate was damaged when Liam Lawson, unable to avoid Fernando Alonso at Turn 1, triggered a chain reaction that saw Nico Hulkenberg collide with his FW47.

Sainz also picked up damage in the chaos, forcing both Williams drivers to pit early and rejoin the race at the back of the grid.

Then, on Lap 26, the Anglo-Thai racing driver came together with Lawson again, breaking his front wing for a second time, sending him into a premature retirement.

After serving a penalty for the collision, he retired to save the car and limit further damage.

Despite the on-track clashes, Albon’s main concern after the race was the pace of the car and how Barcelona once again exposed Williams’ persistent weaknesses.

“We’re not this ultra-midfield car that’s quick everywhere, we still have our flaws and our weaknesses,” he told media including Motorsport Week.

“It’s a clear trend now that pretty much everyone around us has already upgraded, so we will inevitably pull down the pecking order eventually.

“We need to look at this track and understand why it is always the circuit that hurts us. We know it’s long corners, but we need to understand why the long corners.”

Albon sees value in struggles as Williams targets long-term solutions

Albon acknowledged the relief of moving past the difficult Spanish GP weekend, but he emphasised the value of racing on tracks that exposed Williams limitations.

“It might sound weird, but I enjoy coming to these tracks,” he added.

“I want us to be a top team, and I know that these are the tracks that we need to be better at, if we are going to be one.

“It’s good to take our medicine and to understand it, and to really put the car to the test.

“Look at it, see it visually, we’ve got a lot to do here, let’s really get on top of it.

“We’ve improved the car everywhere, and we’ve definitely improved the car in long corners, but it’s still a step behind some of the others.”

Regarding whether the 2026 regulation changes might resolve Williams’ struggles at circuits like Barcelona, Albon remained cautious.

“Maybe, but cars carry DNA, and we know that if we don’t fix it, if we don’t understand it this year, we won’t understand it next year,” he explained. “So we do need to be good at that.”

However, looking ahead to the next race in Canada, the 29-year-old was more optimistic, noting that the characteristics of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve better suit Williams.

“We’re good on ride, we’re good on low downforce, so that works well for us,” Albon stated. “We’re generally quite good in low-speed corners.”

FW47’s track sensitivity laid bare as Sainz calls for consistency gains

Ahead of the Spanish GP, Sainz was clear about the FW47’s limitations, saying that if he had to design a track the car would excel at, Barcelona wouldn’t be it.

The Spaniard pointed to the car’s struggle with “medium-speed, long-duration corners” as a key weakness, with Williams having not reached Q3 in Barcelona since 2017.

When asked if, given Williams’ lack of speed, he felt the weekend was a write-off, Sainz largely agreed – though with the added disappointment of it being his home race.

“It’s my home Grand Prix, so for everything to go wrong on your home Grand Prix is disappointing, and shows that as a team we have still a lot to learn in tracks like Barcelona, to know where to set up the car, how to make it work in a track like this,” he told media including Motorsport Week.

“So, yeah, plenty to focus on, plenty to work around.

“Now we will go back and do our due diligence to see what we could have done better this weekend.”

Looking ahead, Sainz expressed hope for better results at upcoming races but acknowledged there are still several circuits where Williams will likely struggle, given the car’s current performance.

“Yeah, I think we have better weekends coming our way, for sure,” he said.

“I think our next tough ones will probably be Zandvoort and Qatar.

“Those will be for sure tough for our car, but at the same time, I feel like we as a team need to make sure we understand why our car is weak in these sort of tracks, and make sure that next year the car has less performance deviation between our good tracks and our bad tracks.

“In the end, you see McLaren is strong in Barcelona, but it’s not like they’re weak in other tracks, or vice versa, no, they just have an old rounder, and this is what we need to look forward to.”

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