REPORT: Double Points in Shanghai

Atlassian Williams Racing's points-scoring start to 2025 continued in Round 2 of the season as Alex Albon brought home a P7 finish in the Chinese Grand Prix with Carlos Sainz clinching P10.

The double-points result followed post-race disqualifications for three of our competitors, promoting our drivers up the order.

Alex and Carlos crossed the line in 9th and 13th, respectively, after a race that featured evolving tyre strategies that limited the opportunities for both cars to score points.

The freshly resurfaced Shanghai International Circuit saw tyre management become a trend throughout the field in Saturday's Sprint, but most drivers extended their stints on Sunday to run an unexpected one-stop race.

Both FW47s began the 56-lap Grand Prix on medium Pirelli rubber and kept out of any trouble on the opening tour.

With Alex running P11 and Carlos in P15, the two FW47s kept pace with their midfield peers, as a host of cars formed a DRS train.

An early retirement for Fernando Alonso saw Carlos reach P14, and the positions kept on coming as the pit stop window opened.

Our duo kept circling the circuit as others opted for fresh rubber, with Alex leading the race for a brief while when the frontrunners stopped.

Carlos was the first Williams to pit on Lap 18 and fell back, albeit with much fresher hard tyres than those around him, and Alex soon followed suit on Lap 20.

The tyre advantage became immediately apparent as both drivers overtook the Alpine pair – Alex got Pierre Gasly into the Turn 14 hairpin, with Carlos passing Jack Doohan at Turn 6.

Frustratingly, other positions didn't come as easily once our rivals realised the hard tyre would last until the chequered flag and they wouldn't need to stop.

Instead, Ollie Bearman and Lance Stroll, who had opted for a contrary strategy of starting on the hard tyre, began their fightback once they switched to mediums to occupy Carlos' mirrors.

Unable to hold the softer compound behind, Carlos fell behind each, but shrugged off the advances of Yuki Tsunoda to clinch a P13 finish.

Alex, meanwhile, extracted all the life from his hards to keep the advancing Bearman behind, and crossed the line in P9 just 2.5s away from Andrea Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes.

The result gives Williams seven more points for the World Constructors' Championship tally leaving the team with 17 points after two rounds – the same as our 2024 total.

Speaking after the race before the classification change, Alex said, "Considering the Sprint race, today was a huge step for us and it shows the progress we’ve made as a team.

"It shows us that we can fix issues that we have on our car, which is a huge improvement on where we were last year.

"We learnt a lot from yesterday to today, and we can use these learnings now for a lot of races that we go to for the rest of the year. It’s very valuable.

"This track has historically not really suited us, but we still got points!

"I’m very happy."

Carlos shared his thoughts before his promotion up the order after the post-race penalties:

"It’s been a strange and very tough weekend on my side.

"To be honest, I’m a bit puzzled because since I jumped in the car in testing in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, I was quick straight away, but I don’t know where the pace and that feeling with the car has gone.

"Today we got the strategy right but lacked the pace to move forward, and fuel saving didn’t help either.

"We have ten days now to analyse everything and put a plan in place to come back stronger in Japan.

"Head down and let’s keep pushing."

James Vowles shared his thoughts about Alex's initial P9 classification by saying, "It’s great to walk away from the first two races of the championship with points on the board.

"I’m proud of how the team worked together to deliver a good car today considering the problems we had in the Sprint Race.

"With Carlos, he has won a race more recently than anyone else in this team and he knows how to do this; it’s our responsibility to make sure we keep working with him and adapting to get the best out of him."