Albon Opens Up on Williams Fight: 'Putting Out Little Fires'

The 2026 season is barely halfway through, yet Williams is already tasting the bitterness of reality at the back of the grid. The Grove-based outfit hoped to leap forward in the F1 pecking order this year, but instead has slipped in the opposite direction. Alex Albon, the Thai driver entering his fifth season with the team, has now opened up about the struggle.

Albon revealed that this year has been a heavy mental test, both for him and his teammate, Carlos Sainz. "It's very psychological this year, in that sense, because there is no easy thing," Albon told media including RacingNews365. "As a team, we're also fighting extinguishers. We have little fires that we're trying to put out. So it's hard to differentiate what's you and what's the car."

Williams has failed to score at the last five grands prix and currently sits ninth in the constructors' championship at the summer break. This is a stark contrast to the high hopes they built early in the year, when the team shifted much of its resources toward the 2026 car development.

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Facing a pressure-filled situation, Albon has adopted a new approach in recent races. He says he tries to focus more on what he can control: his driving. "All you can do, which is my approach for the last three, four races, is just purely focus on the driving and let engineering do engineering," he explained.

"If you think you've done a good job, you've done a good job, and kind of leave it like that. So it's a very simple approach to going into a race weekend, but it's actually something which I feel like my last few weekends, my performance has got a lot stronger because of doing that," Albon added. He also described the car's improvement process as a "cross list"—ticking off one issue after another.

This shift in approach is a breath of fresh air amid the storm hitting Williams. Although results on track have not shown significant improvement, at least Albon feels his mental foundation is stronger. The question remains: can Williams bounce back in the second half of the season, or will they sink further? The answer will come when track action resumes.