Carlos Sainz’s points claim shows how far Williams have fallen behind their rivals

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It has not been a good start to the F1 season for Williams, who had both Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon finish outside of the top 10.

Williams were one of the teams that had several issues adapting to the new F1 regulations coming into the new season.

Preseason testing showed that Williams would need to make expensive changes to their car, and many of their issues would be unresolved before the start of the season.

What do you expect from Carlos Sainz in the 2026 F1 season?

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Carlos Sainz dubbed Williams’ development process a ‘complicated winter,’ as they found themselves behind several teams.

Both Sainz and Alex Albon looked frustrated during the formalities in Australia. And their performance, along with Sainz’s post-race comments show just how much ground they need to cover.

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Carlos Sainz admits Williams are ‘not there’ as he lists out all their problems

Carlos Sainz spoke after the Australian Grand Prix, after he finished 15th and his Williams teammate, Alex Albon, finished 12th.

With zero points to show, Sainz admitted that their cars are not at the level needed to compete for points. He added that the car is struggling mechanically in several areas, and improvement is needed across the board.

“The car is not there. Sadly, the car is not there to fight for the points. If we ended in points, it would have been because of other people’s problems.”

“We have reliability problems, we’re overweight, we lack downforce… We have to improve in every aspect”

Compared to their rivals, Williams had a disastrous showing. Haas, Racing Bulls, and Alpine all managed to score points on the day, while Williams found themselves alongside Cadillac and Aston Martin as the teams with zero points.

Given how important the midfield battle is for Williams, their failure to get off to a strong start isn’t a good sign. Both Sainz and Albon struggled to get close to the top 10, which suggests the car is holding them back.

READ MORE: Carlos Sainz says ‘all’ the F1 drivers agree about the 2026 rules before the Australian Grand Prix

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Carlos Sainz blames front wing issues for failing to land points in Australia

Carlos Sainz also spoke about his experience during the race and how his initial optimism faded after his front wing issues cost him a lot of pace.

“We had a good start, we were 12 for a moment, I thought we were in the points there for a moment, then we started having reliability issues with the front wing that we’ve been having since Bahrain.”

“We lose aerodynamic load… The active aerodynamic basically, it doesn’t recover well. I had no front wing, and I did 30 laps like a turtle with no aerodynamic charge in front.”

These comments from Sainz are not a good look for Williams. We’ve seen what Sainz is capable of as a driver when he has the right car. His struggles with Williams are going to be blamed on their poor development.

The silver lining for Williams is that this was only the first race of the season, and they now have a lot of time to identify and fix all of the issues that came up in Australia.