James Vowles insists Carlos Sainz “will be on the money shortly”

Williams team principal, James Vowles, has insisted that Carlos Sainz will be “on the money shortly” as he continues to adapt to the team.

The Spanish driver joined the Grove outfit after a four-year stint with Ferrari, where he was eventually replaced by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. Sainz has so far secured one championship point. However, this was only due to the disqualification of both Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in China. 

Sainz spoke about his ongoing adaptation to the car during the drivers’ press conference in Bahrain, stating:

“If you expect to see the best of Carlos Sainz at Williams in the third race in a new car, then you don’t understand the sport very well or you [don’t] know how long it might take for a driver to actually get fully up to speed with the car and fully understand where the last tenth-and-a-half or 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 for 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 [Albon] all the way through Quali I think is a good start, a good point to start 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 the speed we can still improve a little bit. We are not as far as it seems – we just need to put a full weekend together and it will come.”

However, Vowles believes that the new recruit will be up to speed shortly. He explained to the media:

“I mean, I’ve said it already that there’s two ways to assess [the] performance of a driver.

“The first is what they’re doing in the car, and it will take him time. Our car has just a very different style of adapting to it than the Ferrari, and he’s getting there. I think Japan already was a large step in performance, as I said to everyone else, the last person to win a race is him.

“He knows how to do this, and he’ll be on the money very shortly.

“In terms of what he’s doing though, even out of the car, the car is faster thanks to the work and the effort, the work ethic he’s put in and how he really develops from the engineers, and that’s why Carlos was my number one target.

“It’s because he’s absolutely brilliant at developing teams, and he’s really already bringing that to the table.

“And then above that, as you saw, he’s a part-time strategist, but quite good in that regard, and part of the reason why we have the point score is thanks to his help supporting Alex.”

When asked if his difficulties have been exaggerated by the closeness of the field, Vowles added:

“I don’t think so. I use relative gaps, as does he. I mean, yes, the difference now is when you’re a 10th off, there’s 4 cars that shuffle in between the two, but it’s a relative numbers game.

“I mean, between him and Alex, I don’t think there’ll be a millisecond to spare when both are on song, and that’s what he’s reviewing. That’s what I’m reviewing as well.”