Here's the thing about throwing spaghetti at the wall: sometimes nothing sticks. That is the exact reality Alex Albon faced after a brutal Saturday qualifying session at the Circuit of The Americas, where both Williams machines were dumped out in Q1.
Things had looked grim right from the start of the United States Grand Prix weekend. Albon anchored the bottom of the timesheets in both FP1 and FP2, before clawing some ground back in FP3 to finish ahead of team mate Carlos Sainz and the Cadillac pairing of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas. Even then, the Thai driver remained almost 2.8 seconds off the pace set by Lewis Hamilton at the front. By Saturday afternoon, keeping the car on the tarmac proved to be an ongoing battle.
It’s been a general weekend where we’ve invested a lot into next year and probably didn’t maximise the car until the last laps of Qualifying,
When the dust settled on qualifying, Sainz secured P17 on the grid, with Albon slotting in right behind him in P18. Both drivers actually received a two-spot elevation thanks to grid penalties for Franco Colapinto and Gabriel Bortoleto, but it did little to mask the pain.
“Maybe we need to review our run plan a bit. I felt like we went out really early on the last run,” a confused Albon said when asked for his instant reaction to Saturday's running. “We’ve been fighting a lot with the car, with the tyres. Honestly, I finished Qualifying just as confused as I was in FP1. We were trying everything. We’re doing different set-ups every session and yet we can’t fix core problems in the car. We throw stuff at the wall – spaghetti at the wall, I guess – and hope that it sticks, but nothing sticks. Let’s see tomorrow.”
That frustration runs deep through the Williams garage, though the team's ongoing testing with an eye on the 2027 season has played a part in the messy weekend. Sainz admitted on Friday that he was not expecting any miracles in Austin, and he echoed that sentiment after stepping out of the car.
“It’s been a general weekend where we’ve invested a lot into next year and probably didn’t maximise the car until the last laps of Qualifying,” Sainz explained. “I did some really good laps and we changed a few things on the set-up that helped me be a bit more comfortable today, especially in that Qualifying session. On that last lap I was probably just pushing too hard. I did a mega Sector 1, mega Sector 2 and unfortunately I couldn’t close the lap. Maybe with a perfect Sector 3 we could’ve put it in towards the top end of Q1 or even Q2, but I’ll take it.”
The Spaniard acknowledged that the squad had been brave with their set-up choices and experimental running, but was brutally honest about their baseline performance. “I was quite brave on that lap, but unfortunately I did a mistake towards the end and I couldn’t close it. We’re definitely learning a few things about next year. We are investing a lot in it, but it’s also true that we cannot hide the fact that we have a very poor car at a track like Austin. Not even with investing all that time developing all those things for next year, we would be any better today. We are slow – it’s what it is. We’re trying our best, but until the end of the year I don’t expect any miracles.”
