Carlos Sainz described his Austrian GP weekend as a complete “disaster” following a series of technical setbacks that culminated in a non-start on Sunday.
Representing the Grove-based Williams team, Sainz’s weekend unravelled from Saturday’s qualifying, where a suspected piece of debris or component failure hampered his performance.
“Yeah, we must have picked up damage on the floor, which they just confirmed to me that we did,” said Sainz.
“I don’t know exactly where, because it’s not like I went off the track, but something must have fallen off and we lost a lot of downforce.”
“On top of that, we had a brake issue from the beginning of quali, pulling massively and the braking to one side. With the three big braking zones here, I was always going to struggle with that.
“[It’s] another problem that we have to see exactly what could have happened.
“The car was braked from behind when I started the engine and I could not move.
“I managed to reset it, I did a lap and it stopped again from the back and we had to retire. But yes, many things are happening to us lately.”
Compounding the problem, he also battled brake issues around the Red Bull Ring’s three heavy braking zones, ultimately qualifying 19th in the FW47.
Sunday’s race provided no reprieve. Sainz never even began the Grand Prix after his rear brakes caught fire during the formation lap.
Despite attempts to reset the system and rejoin the lap, the brakes seized again at the end of the pit lane and ignited, forcing him out before the lights went out.
To make matters worse for Williams, teammate Alex Albon also failed to finish the race, resulting in a woeful outing for the team.
The back-to-back retirements meant a point-less Sunday for the Grove-based squad, raising fresh concerns about reliability just past the halfway mark of the season.
The Austrian GP was expected to offer an opportunity for mid-grid teams like Williams to capitalise, but instead it exposed fragilities in the FW47’s setup.
