Juan Pablo Montoya on a struggling Williams: “Give people a good shake”

In the final third of the 2025 season, Grand Prix winner Carlos Sainz made it onto the podium twice with Williams – finishing third in the Azerbaijan and Qatar Grands Prix. In 2026, however, Carlos has so far managed no better than three ninth-place finishes, in Shanghai, Miami and Montreal. Alex Albon finished eighth in Monaco; there were no other points-scoring finishes.

Williams finished the 2025 Constructors’ Championship in a promising fifth place; a year later, the team is languishing in eighth place with just eleven points and can count itself lucky that Audi has underperformed, Aston Martin has completely collapsed and newcomer Cadillac is learning the hard way.

Speaking at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, team principal James Vowles admits to mistakes. When asked whether Williams would improve in the second half of the season, the 47-year-old Englishman says: “There’s no answer to that. I think the reality for us is that we only got everything right in the winter; for us, the second half of the season is primarily about tackling this head-on and moving up the field compared to the rest of the field.”

“It’s about undoing some elements that were simply wrong and catching up again – that’s what the second half is all about. What’s more, it’s about our future, because clearly, this year has been an enormous challenge for us – and not just for us, as you can see the top four teams pulling away whilst the rest of us can’t keep up.”

“We know we’re not yet at winning level; I’ve been saying that all along. Our aim is to ensure we get there, and quickly. The team is currently focusing less on the end of this year – although we’ll be fighting for everything we can – and more on correcting everything we’ve got wrong along the way.”

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A former Williams driver is not at all pleased that Williams is struggling to get going. Colombian-born Juan Pablo Montoya (now a US citizen) finished third in the World Championship with BMW-Williams in 2002 and 2003, and claimed four of his seven Grand Prix victories with Williams.

Speaking to the New Betting Sites website, Montoya said of Williams’ situation: “Williams’ problem is that they’re constantly putting things off. If you’re always saying, ‘We’ll sort it out next year’, then you’re not teaching the team how to improve a car or the attention to detail that’s required. Instead, they should constantly be asking themselves: ‘How can we do better?’

“You can’t build a rubbish car and say, ‘I’ll wait until next year.’ At some point, you have to take that pile of rubbish and make it competitive, and the team has to learn to understand how to do that. Last year, Red Bull Racing continued to develop the car right up until the end of the season. James Vowles is a great bloke, but I sometimes wonder: isn’t he perhaps a bit too nice? At some point, you’ve got to give the lads a proper kick up the backside.”