Carlos Sainz told he’s dealing with ‘unusual’ problem at Williams he’s never faced before in his Formula 1 career

Williams have enjoyed a great start to the 2025 Formula 1 season. But driver Carlos Sainz expected much better personally from the first two races.

The Grove-based outfit pulled off a major coup last season by signing the Spaniard from Ferrari on a long-term contract. Ferrari insiders know Williams will do ‘so good’ with Sainz on board due to his technical feedback with the engineers.

The team have already felt his impact behind the scenes as he and Alex Albon have been pushing the staff to improve on last season. This has led to Williams already matching their points tally from 2024 after Australia and China.

James Vowles has ‘mixed emotions’ about this achievement as it indicates how poor the team were last season. Sainz is also bound to feel the same after his disappointing start to life in Grove.

The 30-year-old had looked impressive in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi and in pre-season in Bahrain. However, that has not translated to performance in 2025.

Sainz has just one point for the first two races after crashing out on the first lap in Melbourne. He had finished 14th in Shanghai but was promoted to P10 after the Ferraris and Pierre Gssly were disqualified and Jack Doohan received a penalty.

Lawrence Barretto says Carlos Sainz is facing ‘unusual’ issue of not understanding his Williams car

Sainz sounded eerily like Daniel Ricciardo after getting out his FW47 in China. He could not understand where the performance had gone from pre-season – he has been outqualified by Albon in every session as the Thai driver has made Q3 each time.

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Lawrence Barretto says Sainz is lacking confidence and does not understand what is going wrong. This is ‘really unusual’ considering he had this understanding during his time at Ferrari and McLaren.

“It’s not worrying because he’s been in this position before. When he joined McLaren, it took him maybe two thirds of a season, half a season to really get underneath the skin of that car and then it clicked.

“And I do believe they’ll be this overnight moment where he’ll find a way to get the tricks out of this car as he likes to say.

“At the minute, there’s too many things he doesn’t understand with the car and he’s not excelling.

“ But I think of a slightly greater concern is that he was strong in testing and in Abu Dhabi and he just didn’t have the confidence in Australia and China.

“And that is really unusual for him, he just can’t understand it. Throughout his time at Ferrari and for most of his time at McLaren, he kind of always knew why he wasn’t quick in the car.”

READ MORE: Williams star Carlos Sainz’s life outside F1 from full name, girlfriend and height

Should Carlos Sainz be worried about his lack of performance at Williams?

Ted Kravitz says Sainz is having a ‘torrid time’ after listening to his radio in Shanghai. The Spaniard told his race engineer ‘I’m faster than this,’ a clear indication of his struggles.

Sainz is still getting accustomed to his new environment at Williams – after all, it has been two races. However, the 30-year-old is currently not meeting the expectations of many key figures.

Jaime Alguersuari tips Sainz to ‘dominate’ Albon in 2025 – so far, it has been the opposite. The Thai driver has bagged 16 points after the opening two races, finishing an incredible P5 in Australia.

Sainz helped Albon’s strategy after his crash on lap one by giving guidance about the tricky wet weather conditions. While the Spaniard has clearly benefitted Williams off the track, he lacks the pace of his teammate on it.

This was evidenced in Shanghai as he was almost eight tenths off Albon in Sprint qualifying and almost three tenths slower in qualifying for the Grand Prix. Sainz still has plenty of time to find his feet, but the gap to his teammate might already be a slight concern.