Williams enjoyed one of the strongest seasons in their recent F1 history last year, rising to fifth in the Teams’ Championship – their highest placing since 2017 – and returning to the podium with new signing Carlos Sainz. Can they take the next step as F1 enters a new era of regulations? F1.com previews the Grove-based squad’s campaign…
Drivers for 2026
Alex Albon #23: 2 podiums, 313 points, 128 startsCarlos Sainz #55: 4 Grand Prix wins, 29 podiums, 6 pole positions, 1336.5 points, 229 starts
Williams remain unchanged on the driver front heading into 2026, as established team member Alex Albon continues alongside Carlos Sainz, who more than made an impression across his first season with the Grove-based outfit.
Thai-British driver Albon started his F1 career with Toro Rosso in 2019, earning a rapid promotion to Red Bull mid-season – in place of the struggling Pierre Gasly – and keeping his place at the senior team through 2020.
However, he could not avoid the same fate as Gasly and several other drivers in the second seat alongside Max Verstappen, leaving him on the sidelines for 2021, before making a return with Williams in 2022 and steadily rebuilding his career.
Sainz, meanwhile, started out as Verstappen’s Toro Rosso team mate back in 2015, staying there for just over two-and-a-half seasons until – having been overlooked for a Red Bull promotion – he decided to go elsewhere and switched to Renault.
That was followed by a move to McLaren, where he claimed his first podiums, and then Ferrari, where he secured his first pole positions and victories, only for the Scuderia to replace him with seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton for 2025 – eventually sending Sainz to Williams via interest from several teams.
Last season
As touched on in the introduction, Williams enjoyed a stellar 2025, scoring more points (137 to be precise) across the 24-round season than they had in the previous seven combined. An impressive effort, even accounting for slight variations in calendar lengths.
It was Albon who contributed most to that tally over the first half of the year, stringing together arguably his strongest start to an F1 campaign, before Sainz found his feet and scored a brilliant podium in Azerbaijan – Williams’ first since 2021, and before that 2017.
Another P3 finish for the Spaniard in the Austin Sprint race, and then the Qatar Grand Prix at the tail-end of the season, added the icing on the cake, while locking down Williams’ first top-five Teams’ Championship classification in almost a decade.
History
Williams are one of the most famed names in Formula 1, with the team being the third longest-serving outfit in the sport’s history. Since the late Frank Williams launched the squad in 1978, there have been plenty of highs and lows along the way.
This has seen them score nine Teams’ Championships – the last being in 1997 – while Williams drivers have won the World Championship on seven occasions; three in the 1980s for Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg and Nelson Piquet, before Nigell Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve added to the silverware in the 1990s.
The team have been unable to recapture this form in the 21st century, however, having frequently finished towards the rear of the pack in the late 2010s. There was also a change in ownership when the Williams family sold the squad to Dorilton Capital in 2020.
Signs of progress have emerged more recently, though, with James Vowles arriving as Team Principal in 2023 to spearhead a long-term plan for Williams to work their way back towards the front of the grid.
Greatest achievement
Given the team’s illustrious history, there are countless moments that could rank amongst their greatest achievements; from their first championships back in 1980 with Alan Jones, through to Damon Hill’s emotional 1996 triumph, and that unexpected victory for Pastor Maldonado – the team’s last to date – at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.
But on this occasion we’ve opted for Williams’ incredible form in 1992, a season in which they built on the promise displayed in 1991 to dominate the competition via the combination of the iconic FW14B car and a determined Nigel Mansell at the wheel.
The British driver scored five consecutive victories in the opening rounds of the campaign, and it only took until Round 11 in Hungary for Mansell to win a long-awaited debut World Championship at the age of 39.
While Mansell departed for IndyCar after that season, Williams’ dominance continued into 1993 where they again clinched both titles, this time with World Champion Alain Prost onboard for his fourth and final championship.
One key goal for 2026
Williams’ resurgence under Vowles reached its highest point so far at the end of 2025, but preparations for 2026 have been dented by car delays and non-attendance at the Barcelona Shakedown – altering their immediate outlook for the new season.
“One of the tasks that has been on my shoulders for a few years is making sure we transform this business at the absolute maximum rate possible and, in my experience, the only way you achieve that is pushing the boundaries and limits hard and aggressively and find your limitations,” Vowles explained.
“There’s no point being just underneath the curve or well and truly underneath the curve if you want to transform at speed. You need to find the pain points and put them right very quickly, which is exactly what we’re doing.”
Therefore, the priority as things stand is to get their car to Bahrain for official pre-season testing, give Albon and Sainz enough time to get up to speed, and head to the curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix on the front foot.
If they do so, Williams can then start thinking about building on the momentum generated through 2023, 2024 and 2025, and continuing that path towards another period of championship success.
