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Carlos Sainz says he has been left puzzled by one of the biggest swings in performance of his career from the start of his time at Williams to the Chinese Grand Prix.
Williams has enjoyed a strong start to 2025, with Alex Albon scoring a fifth and a seventh in the opening two rounds, helping the team match its 2024 points total already. Sainz, however, was unable to match his teammate in Shanghai, and despite being promoted to 10th by post-race disqualifications he says he has no idea of where his performance has gone after being so comfortable during pre-season.
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“We got it right with the strategy, unfortunately with the pace of the car, we were just not there,” Sainz said. “Struggling a lot with the front tires, again. A lot of fuel saving during the whole race, which obviously were not helping the fronts, and we just didn’t seem to have the pace.
“A bit puzzled, to be honest. Not happy, because ever since I jumped in this car, I’ve been very quick in testing, but I don’t know where all that pace has gone for this weekend. At least we have now a good ten days to analyze what went wrong and put together a plan to come back stronger in Japan.”
Sainz says he felt he had the pace to be on terms with Albon and get close to the car’s potential ever since he moved to Williams, but since crashing out early of the opening race he has struggled.
“It is one of the strangest swings of performance that I’ve had in my career, going from naturally and super-quick in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, even at the beginning of Australia, and then suddenly the pace just seemed to fall away from me.
“We did a lot of setup changes that on my side of the garage, followed really what Alex did, [both cars] were pretty similar. On his side, it seemed to respond well to a front graining, and he was a lot stronger. On my side, it didn’t seem to help much, and I stayed struggling with the graining.”
Despite reports in Spain that Sainz was running an older specification of chassis compared to Albon, RACER understands both drivers have the latest monocoque from Williams, with the team having modified last year’s design for this season.
As a result, Williams also has a spare chassis, unlike this time last season, and so Sainz will have the option to use a different chassis to the one he raced in Shanghai at the next round in Suzuka should he wish.
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