Carlos Sainz is concerned by what could ‘hold me back’ at Williams after already being caught ‘by surprise’ twice

Carlos Sainz has now scored points in each of his last four Grands Prix for Williams and has helped the team to better their points tallies from the past three years combined.

Not since 2017 have Williams earned more points in the F1 constructors’ standings than the Grove outfit have scored with Sainz and Alex Albon so far this season. Williams are now fifth in the 2025 standings with 54 points, of which Sainz has earned 12 after joining from Ferrari.

Albon and Sainz gamed F1’s two-stop rules in Monaco to help each other secure points with P9 and P10 last Sunday, too. It was Sainz’s fifth points-scoring finish of the campaign, as well as Albon’s seventh over the first eight rounds of the 2025 F1 season to put him on 42 points.

Carlos Sainz is ‘pretty sure’ he still has more to learn about Williams’ 2025 F1 car

Sainz even thinks his recent results have been ‘better than expected’ after the Spaniard out-qualifying Albon for the Bahrain, Saudi Arabian, Miami and Emilia Romagna Grands Prix. He lost to the London-born Thai in qualifying in Australia, China and Japan and now in Monaco.

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The Chinese Grand Prix especially served as a wake-up call for the Madrid native after Sainz was ‘caught by surprise’ with issues adapting to his Williams FW47 that the 30-year-old had not yet faced. It took him another two rounds before kicking off his run of results in Jeddah.

“There’s things in the car that I felt in China and Australia that caught me by surprise,” Sainz told Crash.net. “I was very quick in the Abu Dhabi test with last year’s car, I was very quick in the Bahrain test and in Melbourne until quali.

“And China, being a sprint weekend, I discovered things about the car in quali that I didn’t know were there because I didn’t experience them in testing.

“I thought I was honestly going to be putting better laps together than I did. And after I discovered this, I got to work with my engineers to try to find ways to drive around them, try to change the car set-up to avoid that.

“After doing that, the last few races have been to the level that I think, honestly, is better than expected.”

But while the Chinese GP put Sainz on the path for improved results with Williams, he is not out of the woods entirely just yet. The four-time Grand Prix winner is convinced he will have further hiccups this season, so hopes they prove to be isolated incidents rather than a trend.

Sainz added: “I’m pretty sure there’s still things to discover that will hold me back some weekends. But, hopefully, it’s isolated weekends where I discover one thing and I haven’t adapted to one thing.”

Carlos Sainz scored points in every Spanish Grand Prix he entered prior to joining Williams

Sainz will certainly hope there are no surprises this weekend as the Madrid native heads to the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the first time with Williams. The 30-year-old has scored points in his home race throughout all 10 of his previous entries.

READ MORE: All to know about Williams Racing from team principal to Mercedes ties

Toro Rosso, Renault, McLaren and Ferrari saw Sainz achieve an average finishing position of P6.5, with a personal-best finish of P4 in the 2022 Spanish GP for the Scuderia. His average finishing position so far with Williams is P9.8, with a high of P8 in Saudi Arabia and at Imola.

Sainz will also hope Williams’ 2025 F1 car can prevent a repeat of the team’s last visit to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Williams had the slowest car in the field at the 2024 Spanish GP, as Albon and Logan Sargeant qualified in P19 and P20 and they finished in P18 and P20.

Sargeant was also the only driver to be lapped twice during the 2024 Spanish GP, which was even forecast to be the race where Williams signed Sainz after Ferrari elected against giving him a contract for 2025. In the end, Williams beat out Audi and Alpine to sign Sainz last July.