Williams F1 team send Carlos Sainz & Alex Albon to space in bizarre Artemis tribute

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Williams F1 team send Sainz & Albon to space in bizarre Artemis tribute

Williams have sent their F1 driver duo to space during the 2026 spring break

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Saturday 11 April 2026 22:42

Williams F1 team have gone less than two weeks into the enforced spring break before deciding that the best use of their time would be to send their driver duo to space.

Well, on their social channels that is! Don't worry, Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon remain firmly on Earth for the time being to focus on improving their 2026 F1 car when the season resumes on May 1.

F1 fans are likely to spend more time scrolling this month after the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, and Williams appear to be taking the opportunity to pay tribute to the Artemis II crew who made history this week with their round trip to the moon.

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NASA's Artemis II mission saw astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch Jeremy Hansen become the first people to travel to the Moon in over half a century, with the crew returning to Earth "happy and healthy" this week after a 10-day journey.

The Artemis II trip took them further away from Earth than any humans have ever gone before, all in the name of taking Moon exploration to the next level in a task that was dubbed, "a mission for all of humanity."

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Williams Artemis II tribute triggers F1 backlash

Following news of the astronaut's safe return to Earth on Friday, April 10, Williams shared their vision for what it would look like if their F1 driver duo were sent to space instead.

In a post shared on the Grove-based outfit's official 'X' account, Sainz and Albon were depicted as astronauts floating in space (although crucially, without their helmets, so this hypothetical Williams mission to the Moon would not have ended well for either F1 star).

The accompanying caption to the bizarre post read: "What if?

"Congratulations to the Artemis II crew on making history over the course of the last 10 days."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Atlassian Williams F1 Team (@williamsf1official)

But the Williams social team seemed to have forgotten the one rule of F1 Twitter; never put an open-ended question to a bunch of disgruntled fans.

Williams fans flocked to the comments to deliver brutal digs about their F1 2026 struggles, noting that should the team ever attempt to send an aircraft to the Moon, it would likely be overweight.

One fan wrote: "Wouldn’t work cause your rocket would be 3 tonnes overweight," whilst another commented: "Sorry guys but if you had tried to build it then it would have been too heavy to reach orbit. (Big fan but could not resist the joke)."

Another fan also poked fun at Williams' current F1 disaster, pointing out: "That's not ai Williams actually sent their drivers to space without helmets."

But the harsh comments didn't stop there, as one fan added: "They would be faster in space than with that overweight moving bathtub they are currently driving," with another social media user urging the team to give their drivers a competitive car, responding: "You already have the astronauts Carlos and Alex; now you just need a rocket instead of what you've shown this season..."

After a disappointing start to the new regulations era that James Vowles' team worked so hard to get ahead of last season, Williams now sit a lowly P9 in the constructors' championship.

Only Cadillac and Aston Martin find themselves in a worse position, with Vowles himself even suggesting ahead of the Chinese GP that the FW48 car is more than 20kg overweight.

Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

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F1 Carlos Sainz Williams Alex Albon