Carlos Sainz knew when he decided that Williams Racing were the Formula 1 team he wanted to sign for in 2025 that his upcoming campaign would look very different.
The 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix was an incredibly emotional event for Carlos Sainz and Ferrari.
Sainz’s immediate family all attended the event and he put in a performance across the race weekend that would have had team principal Frederic Vasseur just starting to question whether he had made the right decision in dropping the Spaniard in favour of Lewis Hamilton.
Sainz’s Mexico City qualifying lap was extraordinary, earning him pole position ahead of Max Verstappen and teammate Charles Leclerc.
The Spaniard even showed Lando Norris and the rest of the field how to overtake the stubborn four-time world champion and was unstoppable from that point onwards.
Williams boss James Vowles would have watched on and been even more excited about the prospect of working with the 30-year-old.
Vowles spent months convincing Sainz to join Williams, and he will hope that work pays off when the 2025 season begins.
However, Sainz may have looked at his new team’s performance in Mexico with a tinge of concern, as new teammate Alex Albon failed to finish the first lap and Franco Colapinto could only come home in P12.
The four-time race winner will know that he needs to bring as much of his knowledge from Ferrari as possible to get Williams moving in the right direction.
Carlos Sainz copying Ferrari steering wheel layout at Williams for their 2025 F1 car
A report from Motorsport has shared more details on how Sainz is already planning on helping his new team.
Vowles has been impressed with Sainz’s immediate impact, but the team will really begin to see the benefit of his experience once testing kicks off in Bahrain.
Sainz has spent years perfecting how he likes his steering wheel to be set up and wants the same configuration in the FW47.
READ MORE: Williams driver Carlos Sainz’s life outside F1 from full name, girlfriend and height
Motorsport reports that photos taken of Sainz’s steering wheel before his first run at Silverstone last week highlight a distinct change compared to how Albon’s equipment looks.
Sainz asked Williams to change the position of the clutch to ‘identically’ copy how his steering wheel was set up at Ferrari.
Leclerc preferred a ‘single, very long lever for disengaging the clutch’, however, Sainz is more of a fan of ‘two levels and a double thimble’ that he can then thread his fingers through.
This is pivotal to Sainz’s race starts for each Grand Prix as the moment a driver needs to release the clutch is extremely delicate once the five red lights go out.
Williams heard Carlos Sainz make a hilarious radio complaint during his 2025 run
Sainz and Albon were part of Williams’ 2025 Formula 1 car launch at Silverstone, which was very different to the private outing last year’s machine received in Bahrain.
That’s because last year’s car wasn’t up to the standards that Vowles or the team expected, with the car overweight and short of parts.
So much so, that Logan Sargeant had to sit out at the Australian Grand Prix after Albon crashed in practice and destroyed a chassis when there was no spare available.
READ MORE: All to know about Williams Racing from team principal to Mercedes ties
Sainz was the first Williams driver to take to the track at Silverstone and returned to the pit lane without a hitch.
However, Sainz did have one hilarious complaint to the team that they couldn’t control regarding the crisp British February weather.
That’s not something he’ll have to worry about when the F1 paddock descends on Bahrain for pre-season testing and Australia for the opening race of the season.
Leave feedback about this