Carlos Sainz had the honour of taking the Williams FW47 for its first drive at Silverstone… once he worked out how to get in.

F1 2025 launch season is now well underway and after McLaren’s surprise launch and shakedown run in their new MCL39 at Silverstone on Thursday, it was over to Williams the next day to put their FW47 through its initial paces at the venue.

Carlos Sainz gets ‘lost’ at Silverstone

Williams has a fresh driver line-up for F1 2025 with Sainz making the move from Ferrari to become Alex Albon’s new team-mate, and both drivers were present at Silverstone – home of the British Grand Prix – as the FW47 was introduced to the world.

Sainz would be the one to take the FW47 for its first run, though his initial big challenge for the day – as an amusing social media video showed – was to find the right entrance to get into the circuit.

“That’s not the normal entrance, eh? I’ve been lost for the last 20 minutes!”

Welcome back, confused Carlos 💙 pic.twitter.com/mLyEvJXOw9

— yoyo (@williamssainz) February 14, 2025

“That’s not the normal entrance, eh,” said Sainz with a smile. “I’ve been lost for the last 20 minutes!”

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No harm done in the end, with Sainz’s initial two-lap install run at the FW47 wheel going as planned, after which the Spaniard shared some initial feedback on his new machinery.

Speaking back in the garage to 2009 World Champion and Williams ambassador Jenson Button, Sainz said: “Everything went fine, which is good news, an install lap of a newly-born car is always a bit tricky.

“First, I need to give the feedback. There are two or three things that I felt that could be improved from my feeling inside the cockpit, so that’s something to talk about. Then we will get the car ready to run on slicks and start pushing little by little.”

Both Sainz and Albon will get the chance to learn more about the FW47 as the filming day progresses at Silverstone, with a running limit of 200km in place for such events.

But pre-season testing will soon be upon us, with the three days of action at the Bahrain International Circuit taking place from February 26-28.

After that, it is onto the F1 2025 season-opening Australian Grand Prix, the event at Melbourne’s Albert Park returning to its position as the curtain raiser for the first time since 2019.

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