That’s because Williams has fewer resources in its simulator and testing department, requiring more work from its racing drivers.
The F1 2025 season has signaled a major change for Spanish racer Carlos Sainz.
At the start of 2024 came word that Sainz would be replaced at Ferrari by seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton. While that early warning did enable Sainz ample opportunities to negotiate with the competition, he took his time making a decision — and he opted for Williams as more and more doors closed to him.
It hasn’t been an easy transition for Sainz, who currently sits 15th overall in the drivers’ championship standings having only secured 13 points. It’s been a decade since Sainz sat that low, having finished his rookie year in 2015 down in 15th.
Despite that, he’s optimistic — albeit realistic — about his role at the team and the work it’ll take to improve.
Speaking to media, including PlanetF1.com, ahead of the British Grand Prix, Sainz admitted that Williams has a more competitive car at this point in the season than it had previously, but that that comes with drawbacks.
“A more competitive car is, for sure, stressing a bit the system of the way we do things and the way we work,” he admitted, “and having a car that this year we’ve been able even to fight, at times, Red Bull, Mercedes, even Ferrari in Miami and Imola, has exposed not only our reliability issues, but also the way we look at strategy, the way we look at Q1s and Q2s, and the way we execute the weekend.”
While there have been stresses, Sainz also notes that, “It’s given us a great opportunity to actually learn a lot of the things we might or we could learn next year with a more competitive car.
“But thanks to this much more competitive car this year, that’s already given us a bit of a heads up on everything that we need to improve, on the margin of improvement that we have in so many areas if we want to fight the guys at the top.
“So it’s been a great test for the team; it’s been a painful one, because obviously you see a car that can’t get points almost every weekend, and we keep finding different little things that don’t allow us to maybe get all the points that we think we could get.”
For Sainz, “the number one thing has always been performance, and the performance is there.
“I see good things coming, and this year’s car performance, if anything, has exceeded my expectations of what I thought Williams could deliver for 2025.”
In fact, he feels that the team could be sitting as high as P7 in the drivers’ standings if the team were able to put together a complete weekend, but he admitted that “we are not ready yet to execute weekends in that manner. We are both getting the team [that] the car deserves, let’s say.”
“But I’m not worried, because I know every member of the team knows this, and we are all working on putting things together, and even if, now, at the present time, everything looks extremely frustrating and difficult to handle, it’s been 12 races where, obviously there’s been a lot of up and downs, but I’m confident on the trajectory we’re on and where we’re heading.”
The confidence is high — but so is the workload.
Per Sainz, he’s been doing more with Williams than he has with any of his former teams (Toro Rosso, Renault, McLaren, Ferrari) “just because there’s still a lot of tools that we’re lacking, that we’re trying to develop, and a lot of things that we still obviously need the drivers to be involved, the race drivers.
“While maybe we don’t have the whole setup as I used to have in Ferrari, with a simulator, with the reserve drivers, with all the simulation tools a top team could have, and that it involves a lot more of the driver time and to do things.
“So it’s also obviously a high working load year for me as a driver, which, I’m here for that.
“I know Williams also hired me for that capability that I have to help on those areas. I enjoy that side of my job, and I’m keen to see the results come through in the future.
“I’m confident the results are going to come at some point. I don’t know when; it might be after summer break; it might be here in Silverstone and the rest of the season; or it might be for the last quarter of the season; or it might be for next year.
“But I’m very confident on the work we’re doing back at base and the work we’re doing at the race track to improve the race team, to know that at some point all this work is going to pay off, and we’re going to start forgetting about all the issues that we’re currently having.”
