Carlos Sainz has explained that, despite celebrating their first double points finish of the season in Miami, Williams have set themselves “higher expectations” and are focused on recovering performance after their lacklustre start to 2026.
As one of the first teams to switch their focus to the change of regulations this year, there were hopes that Williams would take a significant step towards the front of the grid, especially after they finished fifth in last year’s Constructors’ Championship.
However, they have made no secret of the fact that their challenger is overweight and they have a lot of performance to find following just one points finish in the opening three races, when Sainz placed ninth in China while his team mate Alex Albon failed to make the start.
The Spaniard matched his best result at the Miami Grand Prix after gaining four positions over the 57-lap evvent, but he was keen to emphasise that the tail end of the points is not where Williams want to be battling.
“It was a very solid race for me,” Sainz said after the race. “I had a great start and then was unfortunate with a couple of moments there on Lap 1 that put me on the back foot, but then I managed to recover those positions.
“I started recovering and settling into my pace. Showed extremely good pace today – quicker than the midfield, still a step behind the Alpine but much better and a much more straightforward performance that puts us in a very solid position today.
“I think P9 and fighting for the points half a second behind Alpine is not what the team wanted, what the team expected, so even though we’ve taken a massive step forward this weekend, it’s still not what we’re capable of doing. We need to keep digging deep because I think we set ourselves higher expectations and we want to live up to them.
“We still have a good part of the year to recover it. It just shows that when you do things well and we all work well, we manage to bring a car here that allows the two drivers to score points. We need to keep going in this direction because I’m sure this team can recover from a bad moment.”
Albon endured a low moment as he was demoted from P14 to P19 for the start of Saturday’s Sprint after he was deemed to have exceeded track limits in the first segment of Sprint Qualifying. However, he nevertheless bounced back to qualify 15th for the Grand Prix and improved further to take 10th at the chequered flag, marking his first point of the season.
Both Williams drivers enjoyed some close scraps on their way into the top 10, most notably with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who found himself on the charge after pitting for fresh tyres in the early Safety Car period.
Asked how he felt about securing a point, Albon replied: “Good. Hard work, for sure. I had a great start and made a good amount of positions, and then that was it really.
“I want to see if this carries over. We need to make sure the performance stays in Canada. We know Miami is a good track for us, so heads down. We’ve got two weeks now just to understand this new package and go through that data. Let’s see what happens.”
