Carlos Sainz explained that Williams are battling an “underlying balance issue” with the FW47, one which could be hard to cure.

The Spaniard would also reflect on a disappointing conclusion to what had been a strong Bahrain Grand Prix weekend as he tries to get up to speed at Williams, admitting that better realisation of the situation which his new team Williams are in is needed – after joining from Ferrari – when it comes to picking his fights on the track.

Carlos Sainz reveals Williams ‘balance’ flaw: Can a fix be found?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

With just one point on the board since joining Williams to team-mate Alex Albon’s 18, Sainz went into the Bahrain GP hoping that would be the much-needed spark to ignite his Williams career, having set the fastest time of all there in pre-season testing.

And it was all going very well as he qualified P8 and battled for points, until an incident with Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, who slid into Sainz’s Williams at Turn 1.

With a gaping hole left in the sidepod of Sainz’s FW47, he would retire the car.

Sainz needs to use his improved performance in Bahrain as inspiration to banish a slow start to Williams life, but while speaking to the media, including PlanetF1.com, ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, he revealed a glaring issue with Williams’ challenger, one which due to their full focus on the new regulations for F1 2026, may not be fixed.

“I had a positive quali. I felt I was, for first time in the year, being close to extracting, I think, the maximum out of the car in single-lap pace,” he reflected.

“Still things that I want to improve and fine tune on things here and there with my driving and the set-up 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 set-up 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.

“So yeah, a lot of work being done in between races to understand this.”

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Following his collision with Tsunoda in the race, Sainz accused the Japanese racer of a “lack of control”, even if he did reflect on it as a racing incident.

And looking back, Sainz believes he should have carried a more conservative approach through that race.

Losing his seat at Ferrari to Lewis Hamilton, Sainz has gone from a car with which he won two grands prix last season, to a Williams which on an ideal race weekend is scoring points.

“Good quali, bit more of a difficult race,” Sainz continued.

“Just seemed to fight cars that maybe I shouldn’t have chosen to fight, but it’s been a bit of a long time for me since I was fighting these guys and I was comfortable enough to fight them.

“So looking back, I would have definitely eased off a bit the fight to them and just focusing on getting the points, which in the midfield is a trade-off that I maybe need to remind myself about.

“I forgot maybe that Bahrain is quite easy to pass in the end, so sooner or later, these cars were going to pass me. If it wasn’t on track, it was with strategy. So I probably just should have… This is my mistake. Focus more on just bringing home the couple of points that were maybe available at the time, and yeah, remind myself that that’s the target right now.

“And yeah, there will be more time to fight the others maybe, in other occasions.”

But, returning to the balance issue, Sainz has urged Williams that it is imperative they address it, as that could open up a whole new world of potential for the team.

“I think, as a team, it’s fundamental that we improve this,” he declared, “because this might be the thing that is holding a bit Williams back in the last few years, you know, and we need to altogether understand it, to try and move forward this car, and try to apply to the next set of regulations.

“And there’s a lot of work being done back at base and between all of our engineering group to try and understand it.

“All of this given the fact that the car has improved massively compared to last year, and it’s a much more competitive car. I think it’s a much more robust platform. It’s just there’s things that maybe it’s part of the DNA of Williams, and we need to keep improving. And I think with my arrival, if anything it’s become a bit more obvious, and given my feedback, and we need to work on it.

“One thing that I’m being very clear with the team [about] 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 per cent sure we can do very big steps forward, which is also actually quite an encouraging thing.

“At the same time, my experience tells me it takes years of development and of experience and trial and error, you know, to know exactly what potentially could be holding holding it back.

“But this is something that I find always entertaining. It actually motivates me, if anything, because I feel like, if I can help the team to understand that and spot it in the data, and spot it in our windtunnel and spot it in our tools, there’s a big, big step coming whenever we progressively improve it.”

Williams sit P6 in the current F1 2025 Constructors’ standings, a point behind Haas.

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