F1 star Carlos Sainz reveals first 'warning sign' at Williams ahead of 2026 struggles

Williams

Carlos Sainz reveals first 'warning sign' at Williams ahead of 2026 struggles

Missing a pre-season test didn't do it?

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Saturday 29 August 2026 22:29

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Carlos Sainz has opened up on Williams' struggles in the 2026 season, revealing the moment that he realised things were worse than he thought.

The British team infamously missed pre-season shakedown testing in Barcelona because their cars weren't ready, but Sainz told the Spanish edition of Motorsport.com that he wasn't overly concerned at the time.

The Spaniard explained that he simply expected the team to have more scope for improvement as the season went on after starting for a lower base, citing their success in doing a similar thing the previous season.

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It wasn't until things started to get worse, not better – the team collected five points finishes in the first six races of the year, and none in the next six – that it began to dawn on Sainz that the team were heading down the wrong path with their concept and development.

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Sainz: I thought we would make up ground as season progressed

The former Ferrari driver explained that the pre-season delays masked some of the mistakes made in the car's design, saying: "The full picture didn't become clear immediately, because at the beginning of the season I thought the problems were mainly related to the accumulated delays in completing the project and the weight of the car.

"I told myself: we'll start slower, but we'll make up ground with the upgrades, just like we did in 2025.

"The situation changed when, after bringing our upgrades to the track, we saw that our rivals were improving more. At that moment I realised that we were not on the right track and that we probably had not interpreted the new technical regulations in the best way."

Asked when he realised that the 2026 season would be a difficult one for the team, he once again pointed to the development battle, saying: "When you see that our progress is much smaller than that of VCARB, McLaren, and many of the other teams, it's not a good sign, because we started from a less competitive base and, therefore, on paper, we should have made up more ground.

"It was then that I realised, along with the team, that we were clearly not on the right track and that we had to reconsider everything.

"The problems were not only related to the initial delay or the weight, but also to a project that was not aerodynamically competitive enough. The current performance is a consequence of three different problems: not finishing the car on time, not building it within the minimum weight, and not achieving sufficiently competitive aerodynamics."