ANALYSIS: Who did improve the most at Barcelona compared to last season?

Although Williams endured a tough weekend at Barcelona, the Grove-based squad became the only team to have set a better lap time in qualifying than in previous season. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers his latest analysis.

Williams had arrived at Barcelona with low expectations as they had expected their FW47 to struggle on a circuit which traditionally exposes the weaknesses of their cars in recent years.

The qualifying session saw Carlos Sainz get knocked out in Q1 while his team-mate Alexander Albon failed to progress into the final segment. The race then turned out to be a tough afternoon for Williams.

Albon had contact at the start and was forced wide. The Thai driver did not only lose several places, but he was also forced to pit for a new front wing. He had a further contact later on as he collided with Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson.

The incident resulted in another front wing damage for Albon and he was also handed a 10-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. After serving his penalty, he elected to retire from the race.

His team-mate also had contact on the first lap which led to front wing damage. With his damage having been a smaller one, Sainz refused to pit for a new wing, but he lost performance as a result of it.

Although he finished the race, he failed to score any points at his home race where he has always finished in the points since the start of his F1 career.

Despite the difficult weekend for Williams, the Grove-based outfit was the only team to have set a better lap time in qualifying than in previous season. Albon's impressive Q2 time was over half a second quicker than what the British outfit achieved in 2024.

The nine other teams failed to find any improvements compared to last season, with Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren having been just under two tenths of a second slower than in 2024.

Highlighting Ferrari's current woes in qualifying, the Scuderia was over three tenths of a second slower than a year ago. Haas suffered the biggest loss compared to last year's qualifying, having been over seven tenths of a second slower than in 2024.