Sainz rules out miracles as Williams struggle in Austin practice

Williams face a difficult start in Austin

Carlos Sainz has warned that Williams is not expecting a quick turnaround after a troubled opening day of practice for the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas.

Sainz finished 19th in FP1 and 20th in FP2, more than 2.7 seconds off the pace set by Charles Leclerc, who topped both sessions. Team-mate Alex Albon endured an even tougher day, ending at the bottom of the timesheets while struggling to keep his car on track.

Sainz described the car as a “mess” over team radio and said he had “no confidence” in it. After FP2, he acknowledged the scale of the challenge: “We know that we’re pretty much nowhere to be seen this year and we’re braced for a tough weekend.”

“We’ll try to learn as much as possible which might give us some information for the future, but we’re not expecting any miracles going into the weekend.”

Team prioritises understanding the car

Although Williams is looking ahead to next season, Sainz said the immediate priority is to understand why the current car is underperforming. “More than parts for next year is mapping this year’s car properly,” he said. “We need to know why it is so bad. We’re going to understand what to do better for next year.”

Chief Trackside Engineer Paul Williams said Friday’s programme included work focused on future development, while the team continued to balance that with the demands of the current race weekend. He said Williams would use FP2 data to assess the trade-off between low-fuel qualifying pace and high-fuel performance.

With COTA offering strong overtaking opportunities, Williams plans to focus on long-run pace and finding the right setup balance. The team’s immediate aim is to extract useful information from a disappointing day rather than expect a sudden leap in performance.

Published: 2026-10-18 00:00:00