Williams will roll into 2026 with a new name on the banking line of its commercial portfolio — and a notable absence alongside it.
Santander, the long-time backer of Carlos Sainz and a partner that followed him from Ferrari to Grove, has ended its deal with Atlassian Williams ahead of the sport’s new regulatory era. In its place, Williams has confirmed Barclays as its official banking partner for 2026, a switch that says plenty about where the team believes its next phase is headed: less about celebrity-driver pull, more about building a corporate platform around a resurgence it thinks it can sustain.
Sainz, for his part, is preparing for his second full season in Williams colours after a standout first year with the team in 2025. Two podiums — in Azerbaijan and Qatar — helped lift Williams to fifth in the constructors’ championship, its best finish since 2017. For a team that’s spent much of the last decade trying to climb out of the midfield noise, that result changed the temperature around the place. It also made Williams a more credible commercial pitch.
Santander’s presence had always felt like a neat piece of symmetry. The bank had sponsored Ferrari through 2022-2024 and arrived at Williams in December 2024, timed to coincide with Sainz’s first outing in a Williams F1 car at Abu Dhabi. When a sponsor follows a driver, the relationship tends to be as much about the individual brand as the team’s own story — and that’s what makes this split interesting: it’s not Sainz moving on, it’s the sponsor.
Sources indicate Santander isn’t looking to rehome itself on another team’s car, despite its continued prominence around the championship. Instead, it’s understood to be doubling down on race sponsorships as Formula 1’s retail banking partner, supporting eight events in 2026. That includes the two Spanish rounds in Barcelona and Madrid, plus the British, Mexican and Brazilian Grands Prix and all three US races — Miami, Austin and Las Vegas.
In other words: Santander still wants F1, just not necessarily the complexities and cost of a team deal. Race sponsorship offers a cleaner global shop window, less dependent on whether a particular car is quick, fragile or stuck in a development cul-de-sac by mid-season. It’s also a bet on the championship’s overall footprint — and, with three US races and two Spanish events on its slate, the bank is targeting markets where visibility and hospitality matter as much as livery placement.
A Santander spokesperson thanked Williams for the past year of collaboration and wished the team well, drawing a line under a partnership that had the feel of a short, Sainz-shaped chapter. The bank’s F1 history is well-worn, having previously aligned with McLaren and Ferrari during Fernando Alonso’s stints at both, back when Spanish corporate support in grand prix racing often came with Alonso at the centre of it. Alonso, now at Aston Martin, remains Spain’s only double world champion after taking titles in 2005 and 2006.
There’s a Williams-adjacent Santander thread too: Claire Williams, the former deputy team principal, joined the bank as an ambassador last year, roughly five years on from the Williams family’s sale of the team to Dorilton Capital. It’s another reminder of how interwoven the paddock’s relationships can be — and how quickly they evolve when the commercial logic changes.
For Williams, the Barclays deal reads like a statement of intent as much as a new logo. Team principal James Vowles framed it as a partnership built for the incoming rules reset, calling 2026 “one of the most significant regulatory changes in Formula 1 history” and positioning Barclays as part of Williams’ long-term investment push.
Barclays, meanwhile, is leaning into the “storied team” line — a familiar corporate hook with Williams — while talking up client engagement and brand reach in key markets. Stephen Dainton, president of Barclays Bank PLC, pointed to the bank’s broad sports portfolio and its preference for combining top-tier visibility with grassroots investment.
From a paddock perspective, there’s a straightforward read here: Williams believes it’s on an upward curve worth underwriting, and Barclays sees a team with enough heritage to carry prestige and enough momentum to feel current. That’s a more compelling proposition than “rebuild project” sponsorship, and it’s precisely the sort of shift that tends to happen when results start to match the internal narrative.
The Sainz angle is harder to ignore, though. Sponsors that arrive with a driver don’t always stay just because the driver does — but it’s still a noteworthy decoupling. Sainz remains one of the grid’s most marketable figures, and he’s done his part competitively since joining. Yet Santander’s choice to focus on race-title presence rather than team branding suggests a calculation that F1’s macro exposure now offers better value than tying itself to a single garage.
Williams will head into 2026 with Sainz and Alex Albon still as its line-up, a team coming off its strongest campaign in years, and a commercial reshuffle that reflects the sport’s wider reality: as the rule change arrives, everybody wants optionality. Santander has chosen it via the calendar. Williams has chosen it via a new partner — and a clear message that it intends to be more than a feel-good comeback story once the new era begins.
