Carlos Sainz is having a bittersweet season at Williams. When he signed with the British team, there was enormous pessimism after the team finished the season in second-to-last place in the Constructors’ Championship with only four points.
There were also doubts about how he would adapt to his new car. However, the team soon underwent a radical turnaround, with a fast car and the potential to challenge the frontrunners. But the Madrid-born driver has been unable to capitalize on his positive feelings and quick adaptation. Carlos Sainz and his time with Williams
After 10 races in the F1 World Championship, we have enough data to analyze how this new stage of Carlos Sainz’s career at Williams is going. The quick summary would be very good feelings, very bad results. The Madrid driver is in thirteenth place with 13 points, while his teammate, Alexander Albon, has 42 points and is in eighth place.
Williams has been one of the surprises of the season, going from being the second-to-last car to fighting in races with Ferrari and Mercedes, which are one step above. And Carlos Sainz, after a couple of races in which he didn’t feel comfortable, has adapted in a surprising way. The FW47 is fast, Carlos Sainz is fast, but the results aren’t coming on Sundays.
“Perhaps this first half of the season with Williams, even though I’ve adapted quickly to the car and I’m going fast, there are a lot of things going against me. But I’m convinced that as soon as we get a great result, we’ll get the momentum we need.”
Another weekend to forget
At the Canadian Grand Prix, where a good result was expected from Williams, bad luck struck Sainz again, while poor team strategy ruined Albon’s race. But in the case of the Madrid native, everything went wrong from qualifying, where he was knocked out in Q1 at the first attempt, thanks to Hadjar. In the race, starting from 17th place, he made a great comeback to finish tenth, which felt good, but he was angry because it showed the potential of the car.
“It was a very frustrating weekend. I finished more relaxed after Saturday’s frustration. It can happen that once a year you have traffic in qualifying. Sometimes it happens, but the problem is when it happens on a circuit where you’re going so fast because it ruins your chances of scoring a lot of points. The race was frustrating too because even though we had good pace, as we were able to show, I couldn’t push throughout the race because there were problems with the car.”
Reliability issues
But the weekend didn’t end there. Williams had the potential to do something important last weekend, but not only did they fail in qualifying, they also had reliability issues, and Carlos Sainz admitted that he couldn’t get the most out of the car, which is why he was throwing his hands up in despair, lamenting that they had missed one of the big opportunities of the season.
“Coming to Canada and doing 70 laps of the race without being able to push because of reliability issues, protecting them, leaves you completely frustrated. If you tell me that starting 17th I can finish tenth, I’ll take it. But after 70 laps without pushing, and finishing tenth, you’re left thinking about what could have been….”
But you have to look at the positive side of all this. It was unthinkable to predict this Williams, to see Carlos Sainz lamenting coming back to tenth place after starting 17th. This says a lot about the great improvement of the team and the ambition of the Madrid native. There is still a car for the rest of the year, and the results should be better from now on. Bad luck in racing usually evens out, he’s already had his share of bad luck on several circuits, and soon he’ll get his chance to show his strength again.