Williams End of Year Report: Climbing back up the order
- Chloe Buckley
- 3h
- 4 min read
With another year of Formula One action in the books, our writers review each F1 team’s 2025 campaign and assess their performance across the season. For Williams, 2025 was a significant step forward as the team climbed to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship. With more consistency and less errors compared to the last few seasons, Williams outscored their mid-field rivals to secure their best championship result in eight years. Here's their end of year report.
Williams Team Principal James Vowles approached 2025 with the clear intention of resetting the team’s trajectory. After several years of sitting near the bottom of the standings, 2025 became the year that the British outfit finally began to capitalise on its long-term build.
The team’s level of improvement was clear. In 2024, they finished the season with just 17 points. By the end of this season, they had accumulated 137 points, an increase of just over eight-times the previous season’s result.
This progress wouldn’t have been possible without the strong performances of the drivers. Alex Albon, in his third season with Williams, delivered his most consistent and competitive campaign with the team to date, regularly extracting the maximum out of the car.
Alongside Albon was Carlos Sainz arriving after his four-year stint at Ferrari. The Spaniard had a rocky start to the year as he got used to the new machinery and different team environment. However, his results in the latter half of the season highlighted his experience and racecraft, playing a key role in Williams’ rise in the standings.
Drivers Head-To-Head
In terms of points, the drivers were fairly even by the end of the year. The team finished in fifth place with a total of 137 points. This split between the drivers with 73 points from Albon and 64 points from Sainz.
In qualifying sessions, Sainz held a slight advantage over his teammate. The Spaniard outqualified Albon 14 times over the course of the season compared to Albon’s nine. This is excluding the Singapore Grand Prix qualifying due to a double disqualification. Sprint qualifying was evenly matched with three sessions each.
Albon managed to capitalise on a stronger race pace as he finished ahead of Sainz in races on 14 occasions, while Sainz held the lead for nine. This comparison excludes the Austrian Grand Prix, where both drivers retired.
This pattern continued in sprint races, with Albon taking the edge, finishing ahead 4-2 and reinforcing his reputation for extracting results on Sunday’s.
Best Moments
Williams returned to the podium twice in 2025, marking their first top-three finishes since George Russell’s second place at the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.
Both podiums were delivered by Sainz, with the first being in Baku at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. After a strong qualifying performance that saw him start from second on the Sunday, Sainz managed his race effectively to convert his efforts into a third-place finish. The result proved to be a turning point in his Williams tenure, demonstrating his ability to rise to the occasion after a difficult start to the season.
The second podium was in Qatar where Sainz finished third again. Starting from seventh on the grid, he made early gains by passing Isack Hadjar and Russell early on. Holding off Lando Norris in the final laps, Sainz secured another crucial podium for the team.
While Albon did not reach the podium this season, he played a key part in Williams’ Constructors’ standings battle. The Thai driver secured four fifth-place finishes this season, his highest result in 2025, scoring him 10 points on each occasion. This clearly underlined his importance in the team’s overall points haul.
Worst Moments
With many highs, Williams have unfortunately had their fair share of low moments too. One of the most difficult periods came in the middle of the season when Albon faced three consecutive race retirements. This occurred in Spain, Canada and Austria and halted the team’s momentum at a crucial stage of the championship.
The Austrian Grand Prix proved particularly damaging to the team. To top off the bad luck, Sainz failed to start in the race after encountering an issue with the car on the formation lap and was unable to set off. This meant both drivers missed the opportunity to capitalise on a competitive weekend.
Additionally, there was a double disqualification for the Williams drivers after the Singapore Grand Prix qualifying due to technical infringements. Albon and Sainz originally placed 12th and 13th respectively in the Saturday session, but lost those places after both FW47’s failed post-session checks, forcing the pair to start further down the grid.
Due to the drivers losing their positions, it made it harder for them to make their way through the grid and score vital points. However, Sainz had a decent drive and scored one point after securing a 10th place finish.
Looking Ahead
Williams will be heading into 2026 with renewed confidence after delivering their strongest season in close to a decade. A fifth-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship and a return to the podium suggests the team are actively climbing back up the order.
Stability with the car under the supervision of Vowles has provided Williams with a clearer direction. However, keeping this upward trajectory means eliminating previous reliability issues and operational errors that disrupted key moments in 2025.
The next move for Williams is to close the gap with the teams ahead of them. With the new 2026 regulations coming into play, it offers the team a crucial opportunity to accelerate progress. With a reset of the car design and performance across the grid, Williams' recent structural changes could help them achieve more than with previous regulation changes.
If Williams can keep building on their 2025 momentum next year and continue to strengthen their race weekends, the climb up the order may not be temporary as the foundation has already been laid for a return to competitiveness.
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