Alex Albon has admitted that Williams is facing an “enormous” list of issues to rectify after two problematic Grands Prix of the new Formula 1 season.
The Grove-based squad entered 2026 buoyed by its rejuvenation in 2025, finishing fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, aided by two podiums via Carlos Sainz.
But the new regulations reset has caused a world of problems, and the car’s ongoing weight issues being one of the primary things to hold its progress back.
Despite Sainz grabbing two points with ninth place in Shanghai, the team is still facing the reality that it is not currently leading the midfield pack as it had last year.
It was a tale of two races for the team in China, or not as the case may be, as Albon failed to even take the start, one of four drivers to suffer this indignity.
After the race, the Anglo-Thai racer explained what caused the DNS, and the uphill battle the team is currently facing.
“We had some hydraulic issues so we can’t even check if the car’s OK. So it makes our job a bit harder,” he said.
“I was hoping I could get back out there on track and just get some laps and shakedown the car for Japan, but not doing the laps, we now have to kind of get the car back into the UK. Make sure we understand it.
“I think realistically, as a team, some things were in our control. Some things weren’t. But the list of issues that we’ve had over the last two weekends is enormous and a bit surprising to us.
“Just because of the reliability and strengths that we had in [pre-season testing] Bahrain, we seem to have not had them in these last two weekends.”
There is a great deal of determination from Williams to sort the problems, and it will be interesting to see whether it has been able to translate the enforced five-week break after this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix into time spent enabling a rejuvenation for the following Grand Prix in Miami.
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