Alex Albon makes glum Williams F1 prediction for Austrian GP

Williams has failed to make the step up the pecking order it had hoped in 2026, and Alex Albon fears the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix could provide another bracing experience for the team.

After seven weekends of the 2026 Formula 1 season, Williams sits eighth in the constructors’ standings, with only Audi, Cadillac, and Aston Martin behind.

Last year, Williams had been clear in its ambition to take advantage of the new rules to leap up the pecking order, but with a car that arrived late, and overweight, the team has struggled, with this particularly evident in Barcelona as both Albon and Carlos Sainz failed to score.

Despite suggesting that things should be “better” in Austria, Albon provided an otherwise bleak outlook.

“If you look at our high speed compared to our midfield rivals, we’re a good chunk off,” he said.

“So obviously, the Red Bull Ring, sector two and sector three is all high speed, so we need to see what we do.

“But we can’t forget, Carlos qualified a second and a half off [Liam] Lawson, so we’ve got some work to do.”

With an eighth place finish in Monaco, Albon holds Williams’ best result of the season – Sainz having managed a best of ninth place in China, Miami, and Canada. But with top 10 finishes just twice, and problems across the weekend, the Thai driver hopes his team can fix the issues that have been limiting his progress.

“We saw there was a [mechanical] issue with the car after qualifying, so we couldn’t change it due to parc ferme rules, and we used that time in the garage just to – we couldn’t correct it, but we could kind of fudge it to get it back to what it should be,” he said.

“We need to understand it. We can see the car is not behaving, and we need to fix it.”

He added: “It explains why I didn’t know what car I had in qualifying. Left to right, corner to corner, I didn’t know what the car was going to do. So maybe it gives a bit of confidence to know something. But at the same time, I just want to make sure it’s not there for Austria.

“It’s just how it is. The cars are so new and we’re realising it’s not just about of reliability in terms of PUs, there’s also reliability behind the scenes that the cars are experiencing too.

“We’re going through a bit of a process of making sure the parts on the car are doing what they want to do. It’s part of it. I wouldn’t call it luck, I’d just say we have to get better at it, and do a better job at it.”