HALF TERM REPORT: Williams’ best and worst moments from 2025 so far and driver head-to-heads

Williams have continued their upward trajectory under team boss James Vowles in 2025, rising to fifth position in the Teams’ Championship via some impressive points-scoring displays. But it has not all been smooth sailing for the Grove-based outfit, with a big second half lying ahead as they try to keep their midfield rivals behind. Here is the team’s half term report…

Best finish

Alex Albon – 5th in Australia, Miami and Emilia-Romagna

Alex Albon made a storming start to the 2025 season by scoring points in seven of the opening eight Grands Prix, kicking off with an eye-catching top-six grid slot and top-five finish amid tricky, mixed weather conditions at the Australian Grand Prix.

Albon added further P5 finishes at the Miami and Emilia-Romagna rounds, underlining his and Williams’ impressive run, and thrice marking the squad’s best result since George Russell’s surprise podium in the brief, rain-hit 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.

Qualifying head-to-head

Albon 8-6 Sainz

Williams served up one of the more intriguing intra-team battles for 2025 when they signed Carlos Sainz from Ferrari, giving incumbent Albon a multiple Grand Prix-winning benchmark to gauge where he stood some five years after being dropped by Red Bull’s senior team.

While Albon managed to hit the ground running in a familiar environment, Sainz needed time to adapt to a different outfit and chassis/engine package – over one lap, that included an initial struggle to get the most out of the FW47 on Pirelli’s soft tyres when it mattered.

Sainz made progress after a particularly puzzling experience across the first three weekends, though, to log four successive top-eight starts between Bahrain and Emilia-Romagna, and he entered the summer break just a couple of marks down on Albon in their head-to-head.

Race head-to-head

Albon 9-4 Sainz

There is more of a gap between the Williams pair when it comes to race days and points scored, with Albon’s aforementioned run – which has helped him reach a mid-season tally of 54 points compared to his team mate’s 16 – leaving Sainz in the shadows for the most part.

As per Qualifying, Sainz has been working hard to understand the nuances of Williams’ challenger across a race distance – his best Grand Prix result so far coming through eighth-place finishes in Saudi Arabia and Imola, along with a P6 result during the Sprint in Belgium.

Both drivers’ efforts have been impacted by a trio of retirements or non-starts so far, with their double elimination in Austria – Sainz due to pre-race brake problems and Albon due to in-race engine cooling woes – not counting towards the head-to-head score.

Best moment

All three of Albon’s top-five results could be thrown into the mix for Williams’ best moment of the year, with Australia being a statement of intent, Miami seeing him beat both Ferraris and a Mercedes in the dry and Imola including a push for the podium.

Looking at the bigger picture, Williams moving up to fifth in the Teams’ Championship following their double points finish at Jeddah delivered another landmark moment in a resurgence that is building more and more momentum under Team Principal Vowles, who arrived in early 2023.

To put it into perspective, Williams scored a combined total of 84 points across the seven seasons held from 2018 to 2024. Just over halfway into 2025, they are only 14 points off that number, having bagged 70 between the season opener and Hungary.

Worst moment

After such a competitive start to the season, Williams endured their first blip of the year across the Spanish, Canadian and Austrian Grand Prix weekends, where they scored just one point with Sainz and saw Albon retire from all three – two due to his engine overheating.

Austria was a particularly painful event, with Sainz unable to even start when he got stuck on the grid, pushed to the pit lane and then withdrawn altogether, and Albon managing only 15 laps before Williams’ season-long cooling problems reared their head again.

Going forward

Thankfully for Williams, recent updates appear to have done the trick in terms of keeping car temperatures under control, something that could be vital if they are to hold onto fifth in the championship and achieve their best classification since the 2017 campaign.

While Williams have bigger ambitions and are already focused on 2026 and the rules reset, converting their current position – by keeping Aston Martin, Kick Sauber, Racing Bulls, Haas and Alpine behind them – would be another clear message to the competition.

“It would mean the world to this team,” Vowles said of that coveted P5 spot in Canada. “It’s a team that’s been through so much hardship, so much pain, and it is great to see everyone’s faces light up with how we’re performing now. It means everything to us. I think it’s a realistic proposition and it’s one that we’ll keep fighting for until the end.

“We have a few things coming; it’s not the end of the road for this car, but we’ve put our wind tunnel focus on next year’s car – we have to. It’s an opportunity to reset and start again. Let’s see if it’s enough to hold our position. A few cars have had updates and we’re still able to fight with them, so let’s see how we get on to the end of the year.”