Alex Albon Makes Bold Prediction For Williams's 2025 F1 Season Amid Carlos Sainz's Entry

Despite Williams' recent progress and the valuable addition of Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon anticipates challenges and setbacks in the 2025 F1 season.

Nov 21, 2024; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Williams Racing driver Alex Albon (23) arrives with girlfriend Lily Muni before practice for the Las Vegas Grand Prix at Las Vegas Circuit. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images / Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Williams F1 driver Alex Albon has been vocal about the potential hurdles the team might face in the 2025 season, despite the new addition of Carlos Sainz.

Albon has stressed that while improvements in the team's operations have been made, continued effort and adaptability will be crucial moving forward.

During an interview with Autosport, the Thai-British driver explained:

“I don't think it's a year where we can kind of be relaxed, [that] we think that it's all gonna come to us now.

“There's still an element of, ‘keep pushing’ and keep making sure that we're learning and being adaptable.  

“We are gonna arrive to setbacks next year, as every team is, and hopefully now we're in a better place to deal with it.”  

In 2024, Williams grappled with their car being overweight, an issue that heavily impacted performance, causing an estimated loss of up to 0.45 seconds per lap. This problem arose from the team's effort to upgrade their car assembly process, which was previously dependent on an outdated 20,000-entry Excel spreadsheet.

Williams aims to start the 2025 season at the regulatory weight limit of 798kg, addressing previous weight-related issues.

Carlos Sainz, who moves from Ferrari, is expected to bring valuable experience and technical insight to the team. Albon has welcomed Sainz, explaining:

“It will be great that once Carlos comes in and integrates himself into the team – his experience and his knowledge from Ferrari is gonna help a lot.

“I do think he will be a good team leader as well. 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. How we take his information and how we can apply it to our car will be really important, too. 

“I think we're gonna have a strong line up and I just think that we've kind of gone through a lot of setbacks this year.  

“I genuinely do believe that we've learned through a lot of them and I'm excited. I feel more hopeful [for] this next year than I was this year. 

“Just because I feel like we've made a lot of changes. And now we've done, not all of the learning, but a majority of the learning, and now we can use that into next year.” 

Williams team principal James Vowles recently revealed the deciding factor for Sainz to choose to sign with the British team. He explained, as previously reported by Sports Illustrated:

“What we can provide is this: he knows what we’ve got coming, certainly in ’26, ’27, ’28. We’ve given him some insight into all of that.

“It’s worth speaking to him over myself. Every time I talk to him, he’s actually quite motivated by what is coming in our future together and he can see the difference that he can make here.

“For sure, we’re way further back than Ferrari and even McLaren where he was before, but we have an environment where he can make a tremendous difference.

“That’s really what’s motivating more than anything else. Every time I talk to him, he’s just: ‘Have you thought about this? Should we do this? Where should we go here?’

“That’s why he’s still out there winning races in a Ferrari.

“I think he sees the future potential and that’s what’s driving him.”