Carlos Sainz warns Williams clock is ticking, his future "depends how quickly we bounce back"

The 31-year-old Spaniard will use the summer break to begin discussions with Team Principal James Vowles and his management team. However, he insists no firm deadline has been established for deciding his future.

“I honestly don't know. I cannot give you a date,” Sainz told reporters ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix. “I always said I was going to wait until the summer to sit down with my team and think about this and discuss with them, with James and everyone, the future of the team and my future in it.

"I expect that obviously during the summer we will start to make a decision and start to see a bit more of the situation. Exact timings, I don't know," admitted Sainz.

Sainz joined Williams after losing his Ferrari seat to Lewis Hamilton, convinced by Vowles’ long-term plan to return the famous team to race-winning contention. His first season delivered two third-place finishes in Azerbaijan and Qatar, Williams’ first podiums in four years. However, their progress has stalled badly this season.

An overweight car and production delays have contributed to Williams dropping towards the back of the midfield. They have scored only 11 points from the opening ten races, with Sainz responsible for six. His best results have been three ninth-place finishes in China, Miami and Canada.

Sainz revealed that Williams’ struggles have pushed back the schedule he originally considered acceptable: "There’s no secret that my expectations or timeline of how long it would take me to win a race again, with Williams being the place to do that, has been delayed by a year or two.

"It depends on how quickly we manage to bounce back from this situation. Obviously I had in my mind a timeframe that I was willing to accept in order to help this team get back to a winning position, and how long I was willing to wait for myself to be fighting for wins again," said Sainz.

Despite describing the current Williams as underperforming, the Spaniard stressed that he remains encouraged: “Clearly that timeline unfortunately – for all of us, because the team is also affected by it – is going to be longer than we expected, and that path is going to be longer than expected,” he added.

“Having said that, I can see what the team is investing in the future. I see the vision of the team is still pretty clear. I see how much is going on behind the scenes when we leave car performance aside.

“It still gives me confidence and motivation that we’re going in the right direction. It’s just that this year’s car, for whatever reason, has been underperforming and very short to our expectations through many, many different reasons that I'm not going to talk about them again here.”

Sainz must now decide whether Williams can deliver success within the remaining prime years of his career: “I need to re-adapt my thinking and portray myself now in three to four years' time and make a decision. But I'm still confident in the path and the project that we are in.”
(Reporting by Agnes Carlier from Hungaroring)