James Vowles sets the record straight on Carlos Sainz old chassis rumours

Williams team principal James Vowles has set the record straight on recent rumours which have claimed that Carlos Sainz is running on an old and repaired 2024 chassis.

The Spanish driver joined Williams in 2025 after being replaced by seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari. After his four-year stint with the Maranello outfit, expectations were high for his Williams debut. But any driver needs time to settle in to a new team, and Sainz is currently in this adjustment phase.

Addressing the rumours in a recent video from Williams, Vowles explained:

“Both Alex and Carlos are using exactly the same equipment – the same chassis, the same front wings, the same gearboxes. Everything is of the same specification and standard.

“More specifically, the question was, ‘are we running a ’24 chassis with Carlos,’ so I’ll expand on that. Both drivers are running an evolution of last year’s chassis, so it’s evolved exactly the same way, but we always intended to go through this sequence of regulation [during] the last year of the regulations, making sure that we are effectively evolving our chassis rather than redesign it from scratch.

“And that’s really important because it allows us to put our eggs in an investment basket of 2026 and beyond. And it’s not a financial question; it’s a time resource. We’re all up against the cost cap, but it allows us to re-optimise and make sure that we’re getting everything for ‘26 we can and we knew there was quite a bit of potential within the chassis.”

The Williams team chief continued:

“As a result of that, you can see we’ve moved up the field, and I think there’s more performance to come from the package we have at the moment.

“I’d also add that I think a number of teams on the grid have done something quite similar to what we’ve done, not all but most would have done. So answering the question very specifically, both drivers are using exactly the same thing, so the evolution of the 24 chassis.”

Sainz earned his first point in China after the disqualification of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, and Pierre Gasly, which promoted him to a 10th-place finish. This came after he crashed out of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. His new team-mate Albon has already accumulated 16 points.