Williams used the opening day of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend in Montreal to announce several new recruits from across the grid, headlined by the arrival of Piers Thynne, while Carlos Sainz said the team had moved quickly to fix weaknesses exposed over the winter. At the same time, Sergio Perez said Cadillac was using the short break after Miami to solve a ride problem before what he called the biggest test of kerb riding on the calendar.
Thynne arrives with a reputation built over years in McLaren’s production operation. He was chief operating officer there, promoted into that role with expanded responsibilities during Andrea Stella’s early technical reshuffle in 2023 that pushed out James Key, and spent years running the production side as McLaren went through major new rules cycles. Williams has been trying to repair a weakness in its own car build process, with bungled builds hurting the team and one painful example this year underlining how costly the problem can be.
Sainz said Williams had not yet reached the level it needs in several areas after the winter struggles, but said the response had been swift. He said the team had taken quick action by bringing in key people, and described Thynne as someone he knows well from his time at McLaren who should be a major help on the production line and operations side. The Spaniard said he was pleased to see the team react fast, recognise it had fallen short of the standard it expected and draw up a plan to reverse that situation and make itself stronger.
The timing matters because the sport has moved from winter speculation into the first hard comparisons of the season, and Montreal gives teams little room to hide. Williams is trying to close gaps that were visible in both car assembly and overall execution, while the Canadian round is one of the most demanding tracks for judging whether a car can ride the kerbs cleanly and survive the low-speed chicanes that sit between long straights. For a team trying to tidy up the basics, that makes the weekend as much about process as pace.
Perez’s comments pointed to a separate but familiar issue: Cadillac’s ride quality. He said the team was generally positive about the progress on the MAC-26, but Miami exposed a problem that needed work during the small break before Montreal. He said the focus had been on finding better solutions after struggling with the ride, and that this circuit is probably the biggest test in terms of kerb riding, because of how much the car unsettles itself and how it absorbs the kerbs. That kind of challenge is often where a package’s true limits appear.
Honda, meanwhile, has endured a brutal start to the season of its own, with vibration problems and reliability headaches still hanging over it. That broader backdrop leaves little margin for teams or suppliers trying to build momentum, especially when the next race immediately asks the same questions in a harsher form. For Williams, the new hires are meant to strengthen the machinery behind the car. For Cadillac, Montreal will show whether the fixes made after Miami were enough. And for both, the answer starts with whether the basics hold under pressure.
