Sainz still sure joining Williams was the right move

The 2025 Formula 1 driver market has been relatively quiet so far, with contract extensions likely to be the major focal point after Max Verstappen committed to another year at Red Bull. Last year, on the other hand, was the complete opposite.

Major movement was always likely, but Lewis Hamilton’s surprise move to Ferrari put another highly coveted driver in play at a time when many top teams had their line-ups either locked, or penciled in. So Carlos Sainz found himself at the center of a battle for his signature from a number of teams that were unlikely to yield instant results.

There was the 2026 Audi project, but that carried a number of unknowns and Sauber was struggling badly at the time. Then there was Alpine, capable of big results at times but facing a seemingly never-ending cycle of instability. So the choice that eventually got the nod from him last summer was Williams.

“My hopes were that Williams would be a solid midfield car in ’25 that allowed me to fight for points and not be at the back end of the grid,” Sainz tells RACER. “Just somewhere around the top 10 that I could still have fun playing around for points – which might sound stupid, but it’s still better and it’s a lot more something to go for than fighting for P16, P17, where 24 races like that can get frustrating for a driver.

“And then the other hopes were still TBC, which is ’26, ’27, ’28. Where can Williams get to? And my feeling and my hope is that we can be championship contenders in the late part of the years that I just mentioned.

“Part of it we know and it’s been more than achieved, which is we are a very solid midfield car. The rest is the TBC of the hopes.

“The fears were being at the back end of the grid and finding a team that doesn’t have the potential to actually be a championship contender. But I must say that that part is also covered. I see good potential and a very strong project to actually be competitive in the future.”

Sainz feels he has adapted quickly to Williams’ FW47, but has been surprised by the close margins among the midfielders. Sam Bloxham/Getty Images

If you didn’t know the overall flow of 2025 so far, you could sit down with Sainz and expect him to be extremely happy with life. A team that has been nipping at the heels of the big four at times, with four top-six finishes this year already, sounds good on paper. But Alex Albon has picked up 54 of Williams’ 70 points, and naturally that has brought an element of frustration to the early part of the Spaniard’s time with the team.

“I don’t regret the move, for sure. And I’m actually pretty encouraged for what I’ve seen,” he says. “2025 has exceeded my expectations in terms of car performance and what the team is capable of doing. So, I’m very comfortable and calm with the decision. I’m just frustrated that the results haven’t been better because the feeling is saying the opposite, but the results for one reason or another are not coming.

“I like seeing the potential because I see that I also have it. I think I would be more worried if I was three or four tenths off Alex every weekend and not being able to match his pace, and see him getting the P6s, the P7s, the P5s, getting all the points and me just struggling for pace in the back. But the fact that I am sometimes quicker, sometimes in the same tenth, sometimes one tenth slower than Alex every weekend, I know I can get the same results – sometimes better, sometimes a bit worse, but nowhere near the difference in points and results that we’re getting these 12 races, for example.

“It’s a bit of a weird feeling because I feel competitive. I feel fast. I feel like when I put a lap together in the Williams, I still have a lot of lap time and potential. But I think we’ve maximized the weekend in one or two occasions out of 12 – which in my ratio of a year in F1, that’s very little in my experience.”

Albon might have the lion’s share of Williams’ points thus far, but Sainz knows how close he’s been to his teammate’s form. Clive Rose/Getty Images

The clear annoyance that results haven’t quite clicked brings us back to Sainz’s desire to have a strong midfield car this year, even if it was always going to be a step down from the race-winning machinery he previously had at Ferrari. He feels he has adapted quickly to his new car, but admits he underestimated how hard it is to nail a weekend for a midfield team, given how close the performance spread is this year.

In a slightly strange scenario, that’s not what Williams is overly concerned about right now, though. Team principal James Vowles wants the team to be looking longer-term – potentially at the cost of P5 in the constructors’ championship – to put the pieces in place to be a championship contender in future, and Sainz’s vast experience is being actively called upon, with the introduction of driver coaches at Williams one such example this season.

“This was talked about well before I arrived, well before we even did a race weekend,” Sainz says. “I just know the level that a Formula 1 team needs to operate to be an even more competitive team, like Ferrari, for example.

“I just came in with a few ideas, a few things that I like and I can cherry pick from the four or five teams that I’ve been to in Formula 1. And if I would have to create a dream team, or a dream way of how I think a team should operate and the structure that the team needs and the way we communicate as a team, I just vocalize that to James and the top level management of the team: ‘Look, I feel these are fundamentals that we need in a Formula 1 team if we want to be world champions in the future.’ So let’s start in ’25 with a driver coach, and with so many other things that I don’t think I have time to stop here to mention.”

The driver coach is a physical new addition to the Williams setup, but Sainz’s feedback also extends to making changes to existing ways of working, having seen how both of last year’s top two constructors McLaren – also in a rebuilding phase when he was there prior to 2021 – and Ferrari, operate.

“I tried from the beginning to make sure we were a bit more disciplined with the use of the simulator, especially with correlation in order to be able to learn for the future,” he says. “I’ve been quite on top of the team with that. I could bring out a list of things that I don’t think I want to talk about. The team is making a lot of progress with many things, but there’s still a lot of things that we need to work on.”

There’s a mix of pride in Sainz’s input, and the level Williams is already performing at, but also frustration at results and a desire to improve both on and off track as quickly as possible. But the four-time grand prix winner still has the bigger picture in mind when reflecting on how 2025 has gone, given his big decision of a year ago was never going to land him with a title contender immediately.

“The trajectory is set more or less where I expected, or even a bit better,” he says. “I feel like if last year you would have told me in qualifying sessions like Miami or Imola I would be quicker than a Mercedes and a Ferrari, I wouldn’t have believed it.

“We are still quicker sometimes when they get it wrong. We have our good qualities where we look almost like top of the midfield and sometimes knocking on the door of the top four cars, but I feel like we’re still in the first 25% of the curve, of the trajectory curve. And the big year and a bit more important is next year.”

Always looking ahead, but Sainz can look back at this point with satisfaction in the decision he made in the summer of 2024.