Williams driver Carlos Sainz was heard having a tense exchange with his race engineer in the closing moments of the first practice session at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Sainz has endured a frustrating start to his Williams career since his move from Ferrari over the winter, scoring just one point across the first four races of the F1 2025 season.

Carlos Sainz in tense Williams team radio exchange in Saudi Arabian GP FP1

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The Spaniard, who suffered his second retirement of the season at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, was classified seventh in FP1 in Jeddah on Friday, around 0.2 seconds slower than team-mate Alex Albon.

As the opening hour of practice ticked towards its conclusion on Friday, Sainz was heard in a tense interaction with his race engineer, Gaëtan Jego, over how to approach a slow lap.

Carlos Sainz vs Alex Albon: Williams head-to-head scores for F1 2025

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Sainz said: “Yeah, I’m charging the pack now.”

Jego responded: “No, we don’t need to charge the pack again. We do not need to charge the pack, please. Keep the pace for tyres. We are happy where we are.”

Sainz replied: “Let me do whatever I want. OK, don’t please. I know what I’m doing.”

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com in Bahrain, Sainz argued that it was unrealistic to expect him to be fully up to speed so early in his Williams career.

He said: “If you expect to see the best of Carlos Sainz in a Williams in the third race and in a new car, then you don’t understand the sport very well, or at least how long it might take for a driver to actually get fully up to speed with the car and to fully understand where the last tenth and a half, or last two tenths, of each car lies.

“Looking back at the first three races, I think I still haven’t yet put a full weekend together. The speed has been there – in Australia and Suzuka.

“In China, I had a bit of an off weekend through many different reasons. But to be honest, in Australia and Suzuka I think I was pretty quick, especially given that I’m still new to the car.

“To manage to be close or in the same tenth as Alex all the way through quali, I think it’s a good start to the season.

“I just need to make sure now we start doing less mistakes when it comes to executing the weekend and keep improving my speed because obviously I believe the speed still—we can improve it a little bit.

“But we are not as far as it seems. I feel like we just need to put a full weekend together and it will come.”

More on Carlos Sainz and Williams from PlanetF1.com

👉 Carlos Sainz news

👉 Williams news

PlanetF1.com revealed earlier this week that Sainz was briefly given a three-place grid penalty for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after an issue with the FIA’s system in Bahrain.

The FIA initially failed to spot that Sainz had served his 10-second penalty for causing a collision before retiring in Bahrain, with the punishment converted into a three-place grid drop for the next race.

However, the mistake was corrected 39 minutes later after it became clear that Sainz had already served his penalty during the Bahrain GP.

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