Carlos Sainz says removing car excess weight will not solve Williams' problems

Sainz, who delivered two podiums for Williams in Azerbaijan and Qatar last season, shed some light on the struggles of his team, which couldn't finish their 2026 F1 car, the FW48, on time for Barcelona's preseason shakedown.

When the car was finally ready, it was overweight, but Sainz believes that is just one issue the team has to sort out, with many others needing to be tackled to improve the car.

Speaking to the Spanish media in Austria on Thursday, Sainz explained: “I think if you get rid of the overweight, you put yourself in the fight for those points—but that's not really enough.

“For me, being one second off... We were 1.8s off in qualifying, 1.7s, 1.6s, 1.9s off [in race conditions] depending on the lap.

“The overweight might put you one second off the leaders, fighting with an Alpine. That's not where we promised we'd be this year. It's not where we should be, considering all the wind-tunnel time we've had and all the development hours that have gone into this car.

"Being one second per lap off the front is obviously not good, so we're a long way from where we need to be," he lamented.

Based on the Formula 1 Aerodynamic Testing Regulations (ATR), which set the wind-tunnel runs and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) items for each team based on their respective order in the Championship, Williams had a decent allowance to exploit.

With the new regulations in 2026, teams were logically going to lose performance, and while some have made gains, Williams expected to suffer from that but not as badly as it actually turned out to be.

Sainz commented: “I think realistically speaking, we expected it to be hard.

“Looking back at it, I think it's been a bit more of a shock of how far we are in medium- and high-speed corners. Partly due to weight, but even more important, the downforce that we have in the cars.

“So, I think it's been a massive—I won't call it shock, but not even a wake-up call because we knew it, but a realization that we are very far from where we should be, where we targeted to be, or where we want to be.

“It's time to go back to the drawing board and start bringing more things to the car, because clearly, in a medium-speed track, we are very far [away]," Sainz concluded.