Threat or big break? What Sainz’s Williams arrival means for Albon’s F1 future

In one very small way, pairing Alex Albon with Carlos Sainz is a gift from Williams team principal James Vowles to the designers of his squad’s 2025 Formula 1 car.

Both appendix-less these days, that’s a rough 9g saving per car no other team can make. Handy, given car weight problem was what really held Williams back last year.

The team now has something else more subjective, but potentially even more rewarding: arguably F1’s politest driver line-up. Two unassuming and friendly characters, with emotional intelligence to back up their considerable sporting talents.

An example. For years now, F1 drivers have moaned about the length of the modern calendar – completely disregarding their first class or private travel, other-worldly life experience and salary millions. The only sage point uttered about the debate this whole time concerning their particular perspective – that travelling to such an extent is too disruptive to raise a family with proper stability – came from Sainz at Austin last year.

And now he joins Albon at Williams to form ‘Carbono’ – per the social media ‘content’ churned out of the team’s recent Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) run with 2023’s FW45 at Barcelona last week.

Some will inevitably scoff at that cutesy amalgamation. There’s certainly a surging narrative about how the friendliness of the current pack overall jars with the needle beloved in drivers of past generations – and still seen in less regular episodes these days, as with George Russell and Max Verstappen.

But however well these two really gel at Williams, this is how it starts.

Sainz arrives after an emotional fourth and potentially final season racing for Ferrari. He channelled the devastation of losing his seat with the Scuderia to Lewis Hamilton into that string of brilliant performances at 2024’s commencement. This included that sensational Melbourne win almost two weeks to the day he’d been under the knife in Jeddah.

Photo by: Ferrari

Now former team-mate Charles Leclerc responded with his best season-long F1 performance overall. But Sainz was so close, again, that the pair were regularly trying to occupy the same piece of racetrack.

Sainz gave absolutely no quarter to Leclerc all year long. The pair even came to (minor) blows on his home patch in Spain. And there was much team radio chatter around their Las Vegas contretemps – both amusing and wince-inducing from Leclerc – plus those eye-catching sprint battles in China and at Austin.

But Vowles told me last year that for him, “that’s normal – one driver will always be frustrated by what it is”.

“If we’re fighting for a win or a podium, so be it,” he added of how Sainz may scrap with Albon one day – in admittedly wishful thinking for Williams in 2025.

But given Sainz’s tremendous performances for Ferrari elevated Leclerc, the time has now arrived to wonder what they will mean for Albon’s F1 reputation from here on in.

This reputation is much restored after Albon endured the savage rapidity of Red Bull promotion/demotion in 2019 and 2020 – going the full length of the energy drinks company’s brutal F1 driver conveyor belt in just two seasons.

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

In Williams, he found the best possible place for rehabilitation and subsequent growth. The team needed a talismanic replacement for Russell from 2022 and got it in Albon, who paired regular starring drives in qualifying with even better race performances. And did so arguably more often than his friend did in the same spot.

From then until Sainz’s arrival, Albon has been clearly the best driver in Williams’s line-up.

Nicholas Latifi and Logan Sargeant never got close, with Franco Colapinto getting a surprise and extended cameo to measure himself at F1 level last year.

Colapinto, of course, did well enough to almost earn himself a perilous ride on the Red Bull driver journey. Before his Interlagos and Vegas crashes finally put off Christian Horner and co – for the start of 2025 at least – Colapinto had done well enough to eclipse Sargeant immediately. And, to some, Albon had therefore been “found out” by his new team-mate.

Colapinto did make waves outqualifying Albon at Austin and in Baku, but that’s where Albon lost the ground he’d been holding to that bizarre fan issue. Overall, however, only once did Colapinto offer better race pace than Albon – around the many incidents that complicated such comparisons. For a full break down of this data, see the February issue of Autosport magazine.

Of these, while Albon made some unexpectedly poor errors in 2024 – that Melbourne FP1 crash that led to Sargeant’s crushing standing down, for instance – the tricky FW46 did little to help its pilots.

Indeed, early on when the drivers crashed pushing hard to overcome its extra weight, the metal parts that’d been added because they were quicker to produce even damaged chassis tubs and further contributed to the team’s spare parts problem.

Sainz, though, is a clear step above Colapinto. He is now Albon’s best team-mate since the London-born Thai driver was last paired with Verstappen in 2020. The risk that he in turn might surpass Albon is clear, but there’s a relevancy narrative in this assessment that can’t be ignored right now.

At this point in time, it’s just as likely that Albon will emerge as the stronger driver of the two in F1 2025. He’s spent three years learning Williams, even around how he feels “every year it’s constantly evolving”, whereas Sainz is learning his way around a fifth new F1 squad in his decade in the championship.

But there are other early indications that this season subplot could well be beneficial for both parties. And this is exactly what Williams is hoping for.

In terms of their driving styles, both are very smooth on turn-in, evoking memories of Jenson Button in a Williams a generation ago.

They like a stable rear end, with Albon even taking a regular step to unwind steering lock past the apex to ensure good traction on corner exit. Sainz tends to load up the front axle by turning in slightly earlier than most of his peers.

And while Sainz’s best Ferrari results came when he could hone his slight preference for an understeering front end with a handling sweetspot, they will be pulling in the same car development direction, which is already of considerable benefit to Williams.

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

The other indication that this pairing is likely to remain jovial is how the 2025 campaign is about “looking forward to what we have in 2026 together”, per Vowles. That’s in terms of what Williams can gain with the upcoming rules reset, if it gets things right on car development.

Vowles also feels “what I love about Alex is he’s a leader”. He adds: “When things get difficult, he pulls forward. Irrespective of what the circumstances are. And that lifts the team back up to emotional strength.

“He was the one encouraging us to get Carlos into the building because he’s not worried about a challenge, he wants us to be successful. So, Alex is everything that I know he can be and wants to be.”

And indeed Albon recognises Sainz’s “experience and his knowledge from Ferrari is gonna help a lot” in the coming campaign.

“He will be a good team leader as well,” Albon continues. “He’s well-spoken and he’s very articulate. He comes from a strong engineering background too. I think he’s good in that sense. So, how we take his information and how we can apply it to our car will be really important, too.”

Ultimately, hard-to-shift narratives are acquired quickly in F1 – just ask Sargeant.

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

And, for Albon, Sainz flattening him in 2025 would require another round of reputation restoration – even if this campaign apparently matters little beyond prize money stakes for Williams (not a caveat to be dismissed lightly with so many millions attached).

But, precisely because of how good Sainz is and what he has already shown in a Class A squad, this year Albon actually has the chance to lay down an impressive marker of his own. If he can beat a four-time GP winner, he could yet earn himself a more concrete way back to the big time beyond the since-superseded option offer to possibly rejoin Red Bull from 2026, which his fine early Williams form had already earned.

And if he helps Williams finally complete its rebuild to winning ways come 2026, all the better too.

Whatever happens, however, expect it to come with utter class.