While the biggest move in the Formula 1 driver transfer market last season involved Lewis Hamilton moving from Mercedes to Ferrari, the second-biggest move involved the driver whose seat Hamilton took at the Scuderia. With Hamilton moving to Ferrari that made Carlos Sainz Jr. the biggest free agent of the last F1 hiring cycle, and the Spanish driver ultimately signed with Williams for this season.
However, the results have not been immediate for Sainz with his new team. He has just one point on the year, thanks to a tenth-place classification at the Chinese Grand Prix. That result came only after three drivers — including Hamilton — who finished ahead of him were disqualified.
Still, Sainz believes better results are coming. Speaking at the FIA Press Conference ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, Sainz outlined how the learning curve is difficult as he adjusts to a new team, but expressed confidence as the grid returns to Bahrain less than two months after pre-season testing was held at the same track.
“Well, if you expect to see the best of Carlos Sainz in a Williams in the third race and in a new car, then yeah, you don’t understand the sport very well, or you know at least how long it might take for a driver to actually get fully up to speed with the car and to fully understand where the last tenth and a half or last two tenths of each car lies,” began Sainz on Thursday.
“Looking back at the first three races, I think I still haven’t yet put a full weekend together. The speed has been there—in Australia and Suzuka. In China, I had a bit of an off weekend through many different reasons,” continued Sainz. “But to be honest, in Australia and Suzuka I think I was pretty quick, especially given that I’m still new to the car. To manage to be close or in the same tenth as Alex [Albon] all the way through quali, I think it’s a good start to the season.
“I just need to make sure now we start doing less mistakes when it comes to executing the weekend and keep improving my speed because obviously I believe the speed still—we can improve it a little bit. But yeah, we are not as far as it seems. I feel like we just need to put a full weekend together and it will come.”
Sainz also outlined how he was happy to be coming back to Bahrain, the site of pre-season testing. The Spanish driver topped the overall timing sheets when the three days of testing came to a close, and while testing data is always taken with a grain of salt, that was a sign that Sainz was on solid footing at Williams.
While the results have yet to follow, Sainz called returning to Bahrain “useful” given how he has felt in the FW47.
“Very useful, especially because here in testing I felt very comfortable with the car,” said Sainz when asked if returning to Bahrain was useful for him and his confidence. “Actually, it’s a balance and a car that I’ve been looking forward to targeting in the recent races.
“Given I was not as happy in China, I looked back at the [testing data] to a setup that we were running here and I was keen together with the team to try and put the car somewhere closer to the way it felt in Bahrain test because there I felt like I was up to speed and driving fairly naturally and I didn’t have to think so much while driving,” added Sainz.
The driver described how he had to think more during both the Chinese Grand Prix and the Japanese Grand Prix, while this week gives him a chance to just drive.
“While in China, I remember, and even in Suzuka, I’ve been having to really break my head to understand how to drive the car and to extract all the performance from it,” added Sainz. “But yeah, you first need to go through these weekends where you have a bit more of a challenging time to understand that and reverse engineer that. That takes time, you know.”
To hear the driver tell it, both the pre-season test in Abu Dhabi following the 2024 campaign, and his pre-season testing at the end of February, saw him comfortable in the Williams machinery.
He hopes to get back to that comfort this week in Bahrain.
“I felt that was the case in Abu Dhabi test last year and in Bahrain test this year,” said Sainz on Thursday. “I didn’t need to think while driving and I felt like as soon as I jumped in the car was quick—actually quicker even than what I thought I would be. I was surprisingly quick in my own expectations.
“And then we went into Australia, the balance changed a bit. The tarmac changes quite a bit from Bahrain to Australia, China and Japan with all these resurfaces that have been done and the car just feels completely different,” said Sainz.
“The through-corner balance is different and you’re just a bit stuck on ‘what do I do now to my driving?’ or ‘what do I do now to the car?’ to go that one more tenth quicker.
“As I said, I was not far, I was within a tenth. That’s where you start digging into the data and you start working with your engineers,” added the newest Williams driver. “But you need to go through this whole loop, whole process, to actually get to conclusions and understandings, and that takes time and experience and some races.
“But as I said, I’m calm, I’m happy, and we’re getting there.”
