Sainz: Williams exceeded expectations but big step still to come

With no place in Maranello, 30-year-old Sainz reportedly considered leading the Audi project before settling on a deal with Williams boss James Vowles, a move that galvanised the team over the winter.

The Williams FW47, however, has been a difficult car to master. Both Sainz and Alex Albon, now in his fourth year at Grove, have struggled with a lack of reliability and operational issues across the opening half of 2025. Rarely have both cars run faultlessly in a weekend, and Sainz has probably logged fewer practice miles than almost any driver this season.

Sainz told Racer:“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. 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 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," predicted Sainz.

Despite Williams’ patchy results, Sainz insisted the move was the right one: “I don't regret the move, for sure. And I'm actually pretty encouraged for what I've seen. 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.”

Comparisons with teammate Albon have also reassured Sainz: “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 maximised 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," reckoned the Spaniard.

Sainz has also been active in helping reshape Williams’ structure behind the scenes. “This was talked about well before I arrived, well before we even did a race weekend. 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 had 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 vocalise 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.”

Sainz has also focused on simulator use and correlation: “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."

"I've been quite on top of the team with that, "Sainz continued, "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 are still a lot of things that we need to work on.”

Sainz believes Williams are on the right trajectory: “The trajectory is set more or less where I expected, or even a bit better. 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," said Sainz.

For now, he has to work on beating his teammate Albon, who has outqualified Sainz 8 times and in races the Thai driver has beaten his teammate 10 times, out of 14 GPs thus far, according to stats.