Report: Tough race on Alex’s record-breaking Williams start

Alex endures difficult weekend at the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP

Published

14 JUN 2026

Est. reading time

3 min

A landmark weekend for Alex Albon ultimately ended in frustration at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, with a difficult car and a rare technical issue denying him any chance to fight through the field on his record-breaking 96th start for Williams.

After a challenging weekend from the outset, Alex lined up on the back foot following a P18 result in Qualifying on Saturday.

With any chance of moving forward looking unlikely, and tyre degradation expected to play a major role across the 66-lap encounter, Sunday's race was always going to be an uphill battle.

AA23 enjoyed a clean getaway, going wheel-to-wheel on the opening tour of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but ultimately remained in P18.

He made his first stop on Lap 13, switching from mediums to hards, but immediately began to struggle with the new compound on his car.

A second stop on Lap 30 saw him fit another set of hards before any hopes of moving forward through late-race attrition were dealt a significant blow when a loose T-cam forced an unscheduled return to the garage.

The lengthy stop left him multiple laps down and effectively turned the remainder of the race into a de facto test session.

Rejoining with soft tyres fitted and 10 laps back from the leader, Alex continued to circulate to gather valuable data and ensure the team reached the chequered flag with both cars.

A late VSC period saw Kimi Antonelli, Charles Leclerc and Ollie Bearman all forced to stop with separate issues, but it came too late for Alex to gain their positions.

With changes made in the race when that lengthy stop was made, Alex ultimately saw the chequered flag as a non-classified finisher 11 laps down.

Despite the disappointment, the weekend still marked an important milestone for Alex, whose 96th Grand Prix start for Williams saw him become the driver with the most starts for the team.

Attention now turns to Austria, where Alex and the team will be aiming for a cleaner weekend and a return to the points fight.

Not the way Alex had hoped to mark his 96th start...

“It's been a tough weekend, but I think we did learn some things. We were already struggling in the race before the camera issue,” Alex shared, adding: “The tyre deg in this heat was really hurting us, and there's something deeper going on with the car that we need to get to the bottom of.

“When we had to pit to fix the camera, we used the time to make some changes and got back out there, but at that point it had become a testing session.

“It's been a run of bad luck recently, but we'll keep working to figure out what's wrong and come back stronger as a team in Austria.”