Carlos Sainz’s move to Williams has been one of the grid’s largest changes for this season. Similarly to that of Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari, the Spaniard has struggled to adapt to a car vastly different to what he was used to at the Scuderia. Speaking ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend, Sainz has given more details on his current struggles, but adds that the FW47 has “potential.”
Sainz has unsurprisingly been outperformed by his team-mate Alex Albon so far this season, but after a strong showing of pace at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix before his car was unfortunately retired, the driver is optimistic for the rest of the season.
“I felt like I was, for the first time in the year, being close to extracting… I think the maximum amount of the car in single-lap pace,” he said of last weekend. “Still things that I want to improve and fine-tune on. Things here and there with my driving and the setup of the car.
“We are still struggling a bit with an underlying balance issue that we are trying to get rid of with this car but we are investigating it and really trying to put all of our brain to see what we can do with setup and tools that we have at the track because, in development, I don’t think we will get much of an opportunity to improve it given we’re putting all of our eggs into next year’s basket.”
This balance issue that Sainz has noted is consistent and is felt by both drivers: “It’s pretty much every lap. It’s there. It’s part of a characteristic of the car. Let’s say it appears a bit more in medium to low-speed corners.”
Carlos Sainz, Williams
Photo by: Peter Fox – Getty Images
“I think Alex also feels it [the balance issues in the car]. It’s very obvious to both of us. I think it just… Alex is just used to it because he’s been part of the DNA of the car for a long time,” he added. “For me it’s more a bit of a new – or let’s say, yeah, a new issue or a new thing that I’m trying to get my driving, my setup, and my understanding around it.
“But I think as a team, it’s fundamental that we improve this because this might be the thing that is holding Williams back in the last few years, you know, and we need to all together understand it to try and move forward this car and try to apply to [the] next set of regulations.”
Unlocking the potential of the car is at the forefront of Sainz’s mind, pulling him through this period of struggle to a brighter end of the tunnel.
“This is one thing that I’m being very clear with the team is: if we manage to improve this, there is a lot of potential in this car, a lot of potential in this team. If we manage to unlock what is doing this, and what part of the car is doing this, I’m 100% sure we can do very big steps forward, which is also actually quite an encouraging thing.”
Team principal James Vowles has set ambitious targets for Jeddah:
“Our intention is to have both cars in Q3 in Jeddah, and there’s little reason to see that we don’t have the ability to do that,” he said. “I think the but that comes with this is that one tenth now looks to be separating five cars. So you could be P7, P8 and going into qualifying three, or you could be back in P12, P13.”
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix begins with free practice 1 at 16:30 track time on 18 April.
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