Alex Elbon: We are self-sabotaging.

      The Williams team had a strong start to the season, earning 54 points in the first eight races, which allowed them to climb to fifth place in the Constructors' Championship, and at that point, they had more than twice as many points as Haas, which was then in sixth position.

      The FW47 car was on average fifth in speed; Alex Albon reached the final qualifying session six times, and Carlos Sainz five times. The drivers' results were about 100.7-100.9% slower than their pole position times on average.

      However, in the following four races, they managed to earn only five points, and their gap to the pole time increased to 101.0-101.8%. During this period, Albon only reached the final qualifying once, and Sainz did not at all.

      According to The Race, if one attempts to pinpoint a single reason for these changes, it was the introduction of stricter requirements for the rigidity control of the front wings. Although it is clear that this was only one factor, and in reality, there are obviously more. Among them are tactical mistakes and reliability issues.

      Sometimes during qualifying, drivers struggled to properly heat their tires. During the Canadian and Austrian Grands Prix, the team was hindered by brake overheating problems, and in those same races, Alex Albon was unable to finish due to a cooling system failure in the engine.

      Albon commented on the situation at this stage of the season: “Our car is getting faster, and we need to ensure that we can effectively utilize its potential. Of course, we are somewhat behind others in implementing technical innovations, but we still aim to get at least one car into the final qualifying session, and possibly two.

      In many ways, we feel like we are letting ourselves down. We constantly analyze what’s happening, we are some of the most self-critical people in Formula 1, and we are truly striving for improvements in several areas...”

      According to Carlos Sainz, his teammate, at the start of the season, the FW47’s speed even exceeded the team’s expectations, and at one point, Williams believed they could fight for 7th or 8th place in the Drivers' Championship. However, it turned out that the team was not quite ready for that.

      “When the team has a more competitive car, it puts greater stress on all our approaches and methods of working,” Sainz said. “This year, the car sometimes allows us to compete with Red Bull, Mercedes, even Ferrari, but at the same time, we encounter reliability issues, as well as problems with tactics and overall how we manage the weekend.

      All of this provides an opportunity to understand many of the things we might face next year, when we will have a more competitive car. But since it is already much more efficient now, we got the chance to understand exactly what needs to be improved…

      This has been a great, albeit painful, challenge for the team because, although the car allows us to score points almost every weekend, we continue to identify various issues that likely prevented us from earning all the points we could have targeted.

      But this is the trajectory we are on now. We are subjecting the whole system to loads to precisely determine where to focus our combined efforts to reach a higher level.”

      Since Williams has ceased developing the car and is focusing all efforts on preparations for 2026, there is a risk the team may not be able to hold onto fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Notably, Sauber is only 18 points behind, and over the previous four races, the Swiss team scored 30 points more than Williams. Aston Martin and Red Bull are also not far behind.

      The drivers of the British team are waiting for the final upgrade package expected to appear on their cars, although Sainz said it was developed long ago based on information gathered during pre-season tests and the first few races of the season.

      Even if the updates allow for some improvement, there are no guarantees that Williams will be able to maintain fifth place in the team standings. In an increasingly competitive environment, potential weaknesses become more apparent and can lead to more serious consequences. The issue is not always the car’s efficiency, but the overall correctness of the approach to work — though the team understands this and is striving to improve in all these areas.