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Carlos Sainz has revealed that the Williams car has a fundamental issue that has hampered him compared to Alex Albon, who has now gotten used to it. The Spaniard has moved to the Grove-based squad this season from Ferrari and is looking at the James Vowles-led project with a long-term vision.
The Spaniard is highly rated across the grid, and hence it is interesting to see how the driver has struggled somewhat to keep up with Alex Albon this season. In the first four races, Carlos Sainz has been outqualified thrice, and the races have not been that good either.
To compound everything, there appears to be a clear gulf in the performance levels of the two drivers, which is quite evident. Ahead of the Saudi Arabian GP, Carlos Sainz opened up about what has been hampering him at Williams compared to his teammate.
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The driver said that the car has a fundamental issue with the way it is designed, and it appears that it has become the DNA of the car now. Since Alex Albon has been with the team for multiple years, he's become used to it, but for Carlos Sainz, it is something that he is finding hard to overcome. He told the media, including Sportskeeda:
"Alex also feels it, and it is very obvious to both of us, but Alex is just used to it because he says it has been part of the DNA of the car for a long time. For me, it is a bit more of a new issue and I'm trying to get my driving and set-up around it, but as a team, it is fundamental that we improve this, because it might be the thing that has been holding Williams back in the past few years."
He added:
"We need to understand it, to try and move the car forwards and try to apply it to the next set of regulations, and there is a lot of work being done to understand it. I want to make sure that even if we are not going to develop this car much, we are still working like we are going to develop this car and we're still working to make sure we understand what the strengths and weaknesses are."
Sainz has also been advocating for the changes to be incorporated before the new set of guidelines is introduced next year.
Carlos Sainz is pushing the team to rectify the issue
Talking about the issue, Carlos Sainz mentioned that even though the team would have a decent wind tunnel time, he is pushing to rectify the issue as soon as possible. Since we are looking at new regulations in 2026, the driver is imploring the team not to have the same issues in the next challenger. He said:
"Because even if we are not going to have much time in the wind-tunnel or in CFD to test things to try and change this underlying issue, we are at least doing everything in our power to understand where it is coming from so we can apply it to future cars. I'm being very pushy about that, and if we are not going to develop this car, we need to make sure we understand as many things as possible to apply things for next year."
Carlos Sainz's season and how it has been until now can be measured by just looking at the points haul that the Spaniard has accrued compared to his teammate. The driver has only 1 point to his name while teammate Alex Albon has 18 points in the bag.
