Williams wrote off Friday at Austin before it even began. Alex Albon posted the slowest time in both sessions — 8.1 seconds off the pace after a track-limits deletion — but the real story was the team's deliberate punt on performance. Williams turned FP1 into a 2027 test session, running aero experiments on hard tyres because COTA's mix of high-speed sweeps and punishing bumps offers clean data on the car's fundamental flaws. Carlos Sainz confirmed the plan: map the weaknesses now, fix them in the windtunnel later. The 2026 car lacks downforce, and COTA exposes it brutally. Sainz called the car a mess with zero rear confidence; Albon reported the same under braking. Even when Williams ran a conventional FP2 programme, Sainz ended up slower than Valtteri Bottas's Cadillac on the timesheets. Sainz was blunt: "Don't expect any miracles." Williams is playing the long game in Texas, banking that sacrificing one weekend in Austin pays off when the grid resets next year.
Read the full story at The Race
