Aston Martin man names the ‘overrated’ F1 driver who will be exposed by his new teammate in 2025

The 2025 Formula 1 season is shaping up to be one of the most exciting in modern history. A significant reason for that is the sheer amount of driver transfers from the previous year.

F1’s silly season was in full swing right from the start of 2024 after Lewis Hamilton confirmed his move to Ferrari from Mercedes. The 2025 campaign will see 10 driver moves from 2024 and six new faces taking to the grid full-time.

Many have wondered which F1 teams won and lost in the driver market ahead into 2025. One team that got it on the money was Williams, who have recruited Carlos Sainz from Ferrari to go alongside Alex Albon.

The Spaniard joins the Grove-based outfit after enjoying his best season to date. Sainz grabbed two wins and nine podiums in 2024 and finished fifth in the championship – all whilst knowing he would be leaving Ferrari before he had even stepped into the SF-24.

Many people have questioned whether Sainz has made the right decision leaving Ferrari for Williams. Peter Windsor says Sainz may regret not joining Sauber amid Audi’s pending takeover.

But Sainz has stressed Williams is ‘100% not a step down as he has bought into the project being built at the Grove-based team. And Aston Martin sim driver Daniel Juncadella thinks the Spaniard will get the better of his 2025 teammate.

Daniel Juncadella thinks Carlos Sainz will expose ‘overrated’ Alex Albon in 2025

Juncadella raced against Albon in DTM in 2021 when the latter found himself out of F1. The Thai driver was dropped by Red Bull in 2020 after struggling alongside Max Verstappen – later returning to the sport with Williams in 2022.

Speaking on the Duralavita YouTube channel, Juncadella explained that he has a ‘negative image’ of Albon from racing against him as he ‘didn’t even want to be’ in DTM – with his heart set on an F1 return.

The Spaniard labelled the Williams driver as ‘overrated’ and he thinks Sainz will drive him crazy in 2025: “I think I’ve always been a little bit more critical of what people in general are with Albon. I coincided the year he ran the DTM which was a very bad year for him because Liam Lawson destroyed him,” he said.

“In fact, it was clear that he didn’t even want to be there. His mind was 100% on Formula 1 and getting back to Formula 1 and he wasn’t even in Formula 1.

“So I unfortunately have a rather negative image of Albon from the past weekends and he was not even willing to be there.

“From what I have experienced with him and from what I have seen from the outside, so I don’t like the word overrated, but I have always considered it like that internally in my head.

“I have thought that and I think this year, I am looking forward to seeing what happens with Sainz alongside a driver who is going to drive him a little bit crazy.”

What have Williams said about Carlos Sainz’s immediate impact on the team?

Since joining Williams, Albon has carried the team on his back, outclassing teammates Nicholas Latifi and Logan Sargeant.

But the arrival of Franco Colapinto threw a curveball as the Thai driver was put under pressure by the Argentine who matched his pace. Now up against Sainz – a proven race winner in F1 – Albon will have to up his game to beat the Spaniard.

The 29-year-old has already been impressive in his first few days with Williams. Sainz set the second-fastest time at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi behind his now former Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc.

F1 fans were impressed by Sainz’s detailed feedback to his engineers in unseen footage of his Abu Dhabi outing – and it seems the team have the same feelings.

Williams engineers have already called Sainz’s arrival ‘a blessing’ as they see his signing as a real gamechanger. The 2025 season could well see the emergence of a new number one driver at Grove.