Williams has admitted that there’s a “shared frustration” between Carlos Sainz and the staff over their lack of ability to transform outright pace into significant leads to Formulation 1 this yr.
The Grove-based managed to safe the providers of four-time grand prix winner Sainz in 2025, in what’s broadly seen because the final piece within the puzzle in its pursuit of former glory.
Nevertheless, whereas the Spaniard has been fast within the first half of the season, outcomes have typically proved onerous to return by.
Throughout the primary 14 rounds, the previous Ferrari star has managed to build up simply 16 factors with a greatest end of eighth place, leaving him a distant sixteenth within the drivers’ championship.
This makes him the second-lowest non-rookie within the standings, solely forward of Yuki Tsunoda, who has struggled since his in-season transfer to Pink Bull on the Japanese GP.
Carlos Sainz struggling in F1 2025 at Williams
Sainz’s outcomes additionally distinction with these of his teammate Alex Albon, who has capitalised on a number of massive points-scoring alternatives to seize eighth place within the championship.
Nevertheless, Williams staff principal James Vowles has defended Sainz, whom he described as “extremely fast”, and blamed a sequence of unrelated incidents for the shortage of outcomes.
“He and I had a chat earlier than this weekend. Then we went out biking and had a chat there as properly,” Vowels mentioned in Hungary.
“There is a shared frustration between the 2 of us. There is not any doubt about it that there was fault on all sides this yr. There’s been moments the place the automobile is fast, however we have both crashed or one thing’s occurred, or we have had it incorrect strategically.
“There’s been moments the place we sampled the weekend collectively. There’s been moments the place he is been caught out a number of occasions in qualifying by both blocking or pink flags, certainly one of which we created.
“And he is extremely fast as you possibly can see when every thing runs easily, we’re simply not capable of get it easy.
“I do not know if it is probably the most up and down the grid. I believe I’ve seen some drivers which are out in Q1 quite a few occasions that most likely should not be, and that is not usually the case for Carlos.”
Becoming a member of Williams after 4 seasons at Ferrari was a large shift for Sainz, who not solely needed to acclimatise himself to a very new chassis but additionally a radically completely different Mercedes energy unit.
Vowles harassed that with the preliminary studying curve full, Williams and Sainz can now work in direction of having clear weekends within the latter a part of the yr.
“I feel we’re now at a stage the place he understands us and he understands the automobile much more,” mentioned Vowles.
“It’s completely different to the place the Ferrari was. We’re not gonna have the ability to make it into the Ferrari, however as you possibly can see, it is nonetheless efficiency in the way in which it’s.
“I feel we have reached that stage within the season the place we’re all comfy with it. Our job now, that is on us, as a staff, it is make certain we discover a easy platform, no pun supposed, the place we’re delivering in order that he can ship himself on the identical time.”
