Barcelona GP: Atlassian Williams F1 struggle in qualifying


By Williams F1 Team
June 13 2026

After a difficult set of practice sessions for the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP the Atlassian Williams F1 Team would see their lack of performance continue in the qualifying session. It was very much another difficult session with Carlos Sainz finishing 16th and Alex Albon 18th after having not made it past Q1. Both drivers were able to do their best in terms of getting their performances from the difficult FW48. Alex continued to fall behind Carlos something that the team needs to figure out the reasons for. Unfortunately the issues that the team and drivers have being suffering were somehting that the team was aware of. Sundays race is going to be a difficult time for the team with any prospect for points being very limited.

 
 Atlassian Williams F1 Team Barcelona-Catalunya GP Qualifying Review
 
Albon
 
Albon

Alex Albon:
"It's been a difficult weekend, more so than it should have been. The balance has felt completely disconnected - we were sliding a lot, fighting both axles, and every time I went into a corner it felt different. There was no rhythm and no real consistency in laps to build on, which is disappointing because we knew this track would be a challenge, but not fully to this extent. Carlos managed to find a bit more than I did in qualifying, so we'll look at that data tonight and try to understand what was going wrong. On pure pace, points aren't really on the table tomorrow, but there is high tyre deg here so there will be plenty of pit stops and a lot of different strategies in play."

Sainz

Carlos Sainz:
"We maximised everything we had today and reached our target of getting into Q2, which is an honest reflection of where we are at this track. We used all our new tyres in Q1 which left us with not much more to extract in Q2, so improving P16 was not possible.

"We’ll be going into tomorrow with a fresh mindset as we know anything can happen here. On pure pace, points aren’t on the table, but this track is hard on everyone’s machinery and strategy can make a big difference. We'll be ready to take any opportunity that comes. It's been a tricky weekend so far, but feeling the support of the Spanish fans has been incredible. I'll give them everything I have tomorrow."

 Vowles

James Vowles Team Principal:
"We knew this would be a difficult weekend coming here, and unfortunately that has proven to be the case. We haven’t been good in Barcelona for the last few years, and despite large changes to the regulations that remains the case, so we need to dig deeper to understand the issues. We know the car is still not on the weight limit, and in these very warm temperatures that has an extraordinarily large impact on the performance, but that’s not all of it and over the next few weeks and months we need to find all of it because it will impact us at other circuits. Well done to both Alex and Carlos for doing their utmost with the package we have here today. We have sacrificed qualifying for the race and kept a strong allocation of tyres, so let’s see what opportunities arise."

 
Sainz
 
Albon
 
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain Lap Length: 4.657km
Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3
16 C Sainz Williams Racing 1:16.881 1:17.827 -
18 A Albon Williams Racing 1:17.424 - -
 
Sainz
 

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