The Driver Market 2025 Formula 1 has been relatively quiet so far, with contract extensions that are probably the most important center of center after Max Verstappen has promised himself to another year at Red Bull. Last year, on the other hand, was the opposite.
Big movement was always likely, but the surprise movement from Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari brought a very coveted driver into the game at a time when many top teams had locked their line-ups, or in Vencilized. So Carlos Sainz was in the middle of a struggle for his signature of a number of teams that were unlikely to give up instant results.
There was the Audi project from 2026, but that wore a number of strangers and Sauber struggled poorly at the time. Then sometimes Alpine, capable of great results, was confronted with an apparently never -ending cycle of instability. So the choice that eventually received the nod from him was Williams.
“My hope was that Williams would be a solid midfield car in ’25 with which I could fight for points and not be at the back of the schedule,” says Sainz Racer. “Just somewhere around the top 10 that I could still have fun playing for points – which may sound stupid, but it is still better and it is much more to go for P16, P17, where 24 races such races can become frustrating for a driver.
“And then the other expectations were still TB, that is ’26, ’27, ’28. Where can Williams come? And my feeling and my hope is that in the late years we can be championship candidates that I have just mentioned.
“We know part of it and it is more than achieved, namely that we are a very solid midfield car. The rest is the TB of De Hoop.
“The fears were on the back of the grid and finding a team that does not have the potential to actually be a championship candidate. But I must say that that part is also being treated. I see a good potential and a very strong project to actually be competitive in the future.”
Sainz believes that he quickly adapted to the FW47 of Williams, but is surprised by the narrow margins between the midfielders. Sam Bloxham/Getty images
If you did not know the overall current from 2025 so far, you could sit with Sainz and expect that he would be extremely happy with life. A team that is sometimes cut at the heels of the Big Four, with four top-six finishes this year already sounds good on paper. But Alex Albon picked up 54 out of 70 points from Williams, and that of course brought an element of frustration at the start of the time of the Spaniard to the team.
“I don’t regret the move, sure. And I am actually quite encouraged for what I have seen,” he says. “2025 has exceeded my expectations in the field of car performance and what the team is capable of. So I am very comfortable and calm with the decision. I just frustrated that the results have not been better because the feeling says the opposite, but the results do not come for some reason.
“I like to see the potential because I see I have it too. I think I would worry more if I was three or four tenths of Alex every weekend and was unable to match his pace, and see him the P6s, the P7s, the P7s, the P5s, getting all the points and I know that I can get it in the same tent. Worse, but nowhere near the difference in points and results that we get these 12 races, for example.
“It is a bit of a strange feeling because I feel competitive. I feel quickly. I feel that when I put together a round in the Williams, I still have a lot of round time and potential. But I think we have maximized the weekend in one or two occasions of 12 – that in my relationship of a year in F1, that is very little in my experience.”
Albon may have the lion’s share of Williams’ points so far, but Sainz knows how close he has been to the form of his teammate. Clive Rose/Getty Images
The clear annoyance that the results did not fully click brings us back to the wishes of Sainz to have a strong midfield car this year, even if it would always be a step from the racing-winning machines he had previously had on Ferrari. He feels that he has quickly adapted to his new car, but admits that he has underestimated how difficult it is to nail a weekend for a midfield team, considering how close the performance is spread this year.
In a somewhat strange scenario, however, that is not what Williams is currently dealing with. Team Principal James Vowles wants the team to look in the longer term- Potential at the expense of P5 in the constructors’ Championship – To be the documents in the future to be a championship candidate, and Sainz’s enormous experience is actively called, with the introduction of driver coaches at Williams one example this season.
“It was spoken about well before I arrived, well before we even did a racing weekend,” says Sainz. “I only know the level that a Formula 1 team should work as an even more competitive team, such as Ferrari, for example.
“I just came in with a few ideas, a few things that I like and I can choose from the four or five teams where I have been to Formula 1. And if I should make a dream team, or a dream way of how I think a team should work and the structure that the team needs and the way we want as a team, I want a fundamental to be fundamental So future.
The driver coach is a physical new addition to the Williams arrangement, but Sainz’s feedback is also extended to make changes to existing ways of working, after he has seen how both the two best constructors of last year McLaren – also in a reconstruction phase when he was there before 2021 – and.
“I tried from the start to ensure that we were more disciplined with the use of the simulator, especially with correlation to be able to learn for the future,” he says. “I was completely on top of the team. I could get a list with things that I don’t think I want to have. The team makes a lot of progress with many things, but there are still many things we have to work on.”
There is a mix of pride of the input of Sainz, and the level that Williams has already performed, but also frustration about the results and a desire to improve both on and outside as quickly as possible. But the four-fold Grand Prix winner still has the bigger picture in mind when they think about how 2025 disappeared, given his big decision a year ago he would never immediately get a title candidate.
“The process is more or less determined where I expected, or even a little better,” he says. “I feel that if you had told me last year in qualifying sessions such as Miami or Imola, I would be faster than a Mercedes and a Ferrari, I would not have believed it.
“We are sometimes even faster when they are wrong. We have our good qualities where we almost look at the top of midfield and sometimes knock on the door of the top four cars, but I have the feeling that we are still in the first 25% of the curve, of the route curve. And the big year and a little more important is next year.”
Always look ahead, but Sainz can look back on this point with satisfaction in the decision he made in the summer of 2024.
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