Williams Racing has demonstrated encouraging pace during Friday’s practice sessions for the Saudi Arabian GP, with both cars finishing inside the top ten during the more representative evening FP2 session.
Carlos Sainz delivered a surprise fifth-place finish with a time of 1:28.942, just 0.675 seconds behind session leader McLaren’s Lando Norris, while teammate Alex Albon secured tenth position with a 1:29.220, showing that Williams could be genuine contenders for points this weekend at the high-speed Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
The Grove-based team collected valuable data across FP1 and FP2 on Friday, completing 96 laps between their drivers and making noticeable setup improvements as day turned to night in Saudi Arabia.
Sainz shared that progress comes from learning what doesn’t work
Post Saudi Arabian GP FP2, Sainz reflected on the incremental gains in his driving and car set-up.
“Yeah, just little steps with my driving, trying to adapt my driving style a bit to the car, little steps with setup, trying to get it into a better window that suits a bit my driving and the limitations that we have this year and you know, trying to make little steps.” Sainz noted mixed setup results but hopes to maintain Friday’s promising pace tomorrow.
When asked about Williams’ expectations heading into qualifying, the Spaniard shared:
“I always target Q3 and points, this is the target for the team and for myself every weekend, so far it’s been tough to get because we’ve had our difficulties with my adaptation process and things not quite going our way, but hopefully this weekend it’s a good step.”
Sainz also spoke openly about the learning curve of integrating with a new car and team.
“You know I’m trying so many different things with my setup and my driving that for sure you see progress because sometimes I try something but I go backwards, but that makes me then go forwards because I know which direction I don’t need to go.”
The 30-year-old added, “The same applies to my driving, I try little things with my driving style and with the switches with the car that sometimes I go backwards and sometimes it helps me go forward, so it’s that adaptation process, that time that I’m giving myself to understand all these things that I was warned it was going to take time and it’s taking its time but when I get it I’ll be there.”
Albon anticipates a “tight” qualifying battle
Albon, meanwhile, noted the competitive nature of the midfield battle expected for Saturday’s qualifying session:
“Yeah, it’s going to be tight and tyres are always a talking point around a track like this where the track’s quite cool or it cools off during the session, it gets harder and harder to get the tyres into a good operating window. We’re normally good at that, so let’s see.”
The Thai driver admitted they needed more car setup work following a scrappy FP1 conclusion on his side of the garage.
“I’m finding our feet a little bit, a bit happier with the car in FP1 than FP2. Fun around this track, very high speeds, yeah got a little bit scrappy on the last set of soft tyres which we’ll need to improve and figure out what went wrong and I think we still need to work a little bit on our long run pace so a bit of fine tuning, it’s going to be close like always. So every little bit helps.”
Williams’ strong showing on Friday comes as the team looks to capitalise on the high-speed characteristics of the Jeddah circuit.
The team’s tyre management capabilities could provide a crucial advantage during qualifying when track temperatures drop, potentially creating challenging conditions for optimal tyre warm-up. This has been an area of strength for Williams lately, and could help them secure coveted Q3 positions on Saturday.
They sit sixth, just a point behind Haas, eyeing a strong weekend to snatch fifth in the standings. With the midfield battle appearing incredibly tight, Williams’ Friday performance suggests they are genuine contenders for points this weekend, provided they can fine-tune their setups overnight and execute a clean qualifying session on Saturday.
