Carlos Sainz (Williams): Backed the wrong horse? “Worrying”

Has Carlos Sainz backed the wrong horse? When it became clear that Mercedes superstar Lewis Hamilton was moving to Ferrari, the four-time Grand Prix winner from Madrid found himself out of a drive. The son of the World Rally Champion of the same name had two main options – Audi and Williams. His father, Carlos, advised him to go with Audi, but his son, Carlos, signed for Williams.

Carlos the younger firmly believes in the vision of Williams team principal James Vowles, who wants to put Williams back on the winning track. But on the way there, Vowles and his team seem to have taken a wrong turn.

In the final third of the season, Sainz made it onto the podium twice – finishing third in the Azerbaijan and Qatar Grands Prix. In 2026, however, Carlos has so far managed no better than three ninth-place finishes, in Shanghai, Miami and Montreal.

Williams finished the 2025 Constructors’ Championship in a respectable fifth place; a year on, the team is languishing in eighth place with just eleven points and can count itself lucky that Audi has underperformed, Aston Martin has completely collapsed and newcomer Cadillac is learning the hard way.

Naturally, one has to ask: has Carlos Sainz backed the wrong horse with Williams? The fifth-placed driver in the World Championship in 2021, 2022 and 2024 has always stood by the team so far, but following the latest race at Silverstone, there has been plenty of criticism.

The four-time Grand Prix winner says: “We had a really good start at Silverstone and a very good first lap; I was in the points and thought the race would go our way from there, because I could keep the cars behind me – perhaps with the dirty air I was giving them – at bay for the rest of the race.”

“But as soon as we found our rhythm, I realised that the Alpine and the Audi were simply too fast for us, which had been the case all weekend – I couldn’t hold them off. That’s worrying and frustrating because a worrying trend is emerging this year, namely that we seem to be gaining hardly any lap time despite the improvements we’ve made.”

“We need to analyse what’s going on, because unfortunately we’ve now taken a lot of weight out of the car, but the gap to the top teams is growing rather than shrinking, and the gap to the front of the midfield is also getting bigger – so we don’t seem to be finding the lap times that the new components promised in the wind tunnel.”

“Of course I’m annoyed – though ‘concerned’ is perhaps the more appropriate word. Nobody likes being overtaken, especially after so many good starts we’ve had this year, when we’ve finished in the points on several occasions – only to fall back.”