The 2026 Belgian GP proved to be another difficult weekend for Williams F1’s Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon, who finished in P16 and P15 respectively. Both drivers remain on a run of point-less outings stretching back to Barcelona, as the Grove-based team continues to understand and unlock performance from their difficult FW48.
P16 “was as good as it gets” for Sainz and Williams at 2026 F1 Belgian GP
Despite qualifying P15 on Saturday, Sainz ultimately started Sunday’s race further down the grid in P19 instead after the Spaniard took additional power unit components overnight. The change came with a ten-place grid penalty.
Speaking in the print media zone after the race, Sainz reflected on a chaotic opening lap, describing it as nothing out of the ordinary after an incident with Esteban Ocon left him with front wing and floor damage at the opening corner.
He said: “The slowing of everyone ahead of me and being a bit surprised with a few movements but it’s normal in Turn 1, nothing to say. The problem is I had to change the front wing as I had quite a lot of damage quite early on in the race, as the damage was making me lose quite a lot of load.”
Having stopped on Lap 14, the Spaniard felt Williams had extracted their maximum potential in the race. He took positives from the improvements made after the Free Practice struggles, with the team managing to recover performance and demonstrate considerably stronger race pace on Sunday.
“Slow pitstop, obviously having to change the wing but then I was quite far back from Bearman and Alex after that pitstop. I knocked on and managed to recover a lot of pace and in the second part of the race I was really strong, really fast.”
“In that sense I’m happy with my race pace once everything was together and relieved to see that FP1, FP2 and FP3 issues were just an issue that we managed to change and the pace in Quali and the race was as good as it gets.”
Sainz: Current power unit regulations “not good enough” for F1
Heading into the weekend, much of the discussion centred around battery deployment and management around the 7.004km circuit, with many drivers and teams expressing concern.
When asked if deployment strategies felt better during the race, especially with the criticism after qualifying he said: “In the race, obviously, you are more grip-limited, so you fight the car a bit more through there.
“I think we all missed the qualifying of last year, especially at a track like this or Silverstone. As I said yesterday, it’s not worth commenting much more about it.
“I think everyone knows this is not good enough for F1 and it needs to be changed, it’s going to be changed, it’s going to be evolved. But it’s clear that none of us are enjoying the cars as much as last year through qualifying.”
With the FIA approving a move towards a 58/42 split in favour of ICE for 2027, Sainz believes the change still does not go far enough.
“Probably not, that’s why for safety, they are already planning a change because they know this is not the best,” said Sainz when asked if the power unit split for 2027 is enough. “Even though they will try and improve it and it will improve, I think everyone knows enough of too much electric and just go back to what is always working for you.”
Sainz weighs in on potential power unit struggles at Monza
Looking ahead to Monza, Sainz believes that Spa-Francorchamps and Silverstone will remain among the circuits where the current power unit regulations’ limitations have the biggest impact on high-speed performance.
He said: “Well, at Monza there is no high-speed where you play with the throttle and the brakes a bit. So we will just super clip and use the energy a lot in the straights. But the corners should be not that different and then yeah, this and Silverstone probably the worst in terms of missing high-speed performance.”
Albon left to rue setup changes that made 2026 F1 Belgian GP more difficult
Having started the race in P15 ahead of Sainz, Albon reflected on his race, saying: “Yeah, it’s one of those ones where you get a good start, your first 5-6 laps, you feel like you’re at the same pace as the midfield and then suddenly the midfield turns the burners on and you stay at the same pace and you pull behind slowly. Yeah, fell back through the race.”
“We need to look because we were looking good all weekend until from FP3 to quali which we stepped back and it was mostly on my car, I think Carlos had the opposite,” he explained
After making changes between FP3 and qualifying, Albon believes the team moved in the wrong direction. However, looking back on the weekend as a whole, the Thai driver described it as another one to forget.
“I think we saw […] there’s some issues that we replaced some parts between FP3 and quali and we actually made mistakes. We had some issues with the parts that we replaced, so it looks like we lost some performance when we did that. We were carrying that part through Parc Fermé, so we obviously couldn’t adjust it. I’m hoping that’s partly why but it’s just another one where we can forget.”
Albon: Williams F1 still need to “figure out” to get FW48 “into a better place”
The 2026 F1 season has brought contrasting fortunes for Williams, following their strong midfield campaign last year. With the FW48 continuing to underperform at most circuits, Albon explained that the team is working hard to understand their challenger and unlock its potential.
“To be honest with you, we’re still ongoing, we’re still doing testing, we’re still trying to figure out why this car is so poor. What we know more and more, it’s not just weight anymore.”
“As our weight comes off, the gaps are still there as the other teams are improving in front of us. If we don’t know something now before Baku, I think we’re still going to be on the back foot in Baku once that upgrade arrives. We still need to keep trying to figure out how we can get this car into a better place.”
