REPORT: No Points Scored in Bahrain

Atlassian Williams Racing's 2025 point-scoring run came to an end under the Sakhir lights after 57 frantic laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Alex Albon brought his FW47 home in P12 after a spirited drive from his P15 starting slot. Albono spent his evening in wheel-to-wheel action, battling with those around him and advancing up the order, to be only 1.3s from the top 10 positions by the flag.

It was a DNF for Carlos Sainz on the other side of the garage after damage sustained in a scrap with a rival hurt his race pace. The Spaniard spent much of his race in the upper half of the grid before a large hole in his sidepod ruined his race pace.

The race began encouragingly, with both drivers picking up a place or two in the opening lap. Carlos reached P6 after passing Max Verstappen and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, while Alex sat in P14 as Isack Hadjar struggled.

That was a sign of things to come, as the two FW47s spent their Sunday in an overtake-or-be-overtaken blitz. Fernando Alonso was the next to fall for Alex, while Carlos returned to P8 in a busy side-by-side lap or racing.

Pit stops for others saw Alex and Carlos reach the upper places before their stops, and Carbono ran line astern before a brace of pit stops separated the pair. Splitting the strategy, Carlos went to the Medium Pirelli while Alex switched to the Hard one lap later.

Fresh rubber helped each car to get back to overtaking. Other drivers had undercut the FW47s, but the extra grip helped to recover those places. For Carlos, though, one of those overtakes would result in race-ending damage.

Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull was the target for our Spaniard to pass, and he battled by at Turn 1. Contact between the two cars on the exit left debris on the track as carbon fibre flew from Carlos' sidepod on the run to Turn 3.

The resulting Safety Car to clear the aftermath triggered a doublestack pit stop for the Atlassian Williams Racing crew, who deftly serviced our two drivers. However, it soon became clear just how troublesome the damage was on Carlos' car.

Carlos couldn't hold back those behind him when the race restarted, and a wide moment at Turn 10 saw Alex pass to become the lead Williams. Alex pushed on to be in the midst of a four-car fight, where Ollie Bearman's defending opened the door for Antonelli to get past.

A DRS train formed for the final points-paying positions, with Alex at the tail end, but unable to pass before the cheque. Meanwhile, the pit wall called Carlos to the garage to retire after it became clear that his pace was gone for this Bahrain GP.

"Alex, you drove very well," said James Vowles on Alex's cooldown lap.

"I think the Safety Car may have helped a bit, but the reality behind it is I think we're quite down on front tyres aren't we?

"We'll come back stronger next week."

Speaking after the race, Alex shared his thoughts by saying "We were unfortunate today.

"Points were on the cards, our race pace was really strong, and we had really good first and second stints.

"Then we got a bit unlucky with the safety car and had to double stack, so we lost a couple of places.

"I’m generally still happy though; a lot of lessons have been learned that we can carry forward to the rest of the year."

Carlos shared the disappointment, too, and said, "A frustrating end to a promising race.

"After a nice start, I used up my Soft tyres battling hard and trying to keep within DRS of the faster cars around me.

"Once the Soft compound was done, we stopped and went back at it gaining positions with good overtakes.

"Unfortunately, the incident with Yuki cost us the race. The impact on my right hand sidepod caused major damage and that was it for me.

"Despite the end result, there are a lot of positives to take. We had good pace all weekend and could have been in the points today, so we’ll take it as it is and look at how we can come back stronger next week in Saudi."