James Vowles shares how much blame was on Yuki Tsunoda for incident that ruined Carlos Sainz’s Bahrain Grand Prix

Much was expected from Carlos Sainz at Williams in 2025 during the off-season. However, his transition from Ferrari has proved harder than he thought.

Signs were encouraging in pre-season testing as the Spaniard and teammate Alex Albon produced strong times in Bahrain. Williams are building for the future as they look to return to the top in F1 – they now have two leaders capable of taking them there.

Sainz was ‘tipped’ to dominate Albon at the start of the season, given that the former is a four-time race winner and is the first major test for the latter at Williams. However, it has been the Thai driver who has had the upper hand.

Albon has finished in the points in every race bar the Bahrain Grand Prix this season so far. Meanwhile, Sainz has amassed just one point, finishing 10th in Shanghai.

The Spaniard has struggled to adapt to his new surroundings and the FW47. Sainz is facing an ‘unusual’ issue as he cannot understand his Williams machine – something he did not struggle with at Ferrari and McLaren.

It seemed the 30-year-old had turned a corner in Bahrain as he reached Q3, qualifying eighth between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Sainz looked on course for points, but it was more disappointment for Williams’ new signing as he suffered his second retirement of the season.

James Vowles pins more blame on Yuki Tsunoda for his incident with Carlos Sainz in Bahrain

Just past the halfway mark of the race, Sainz collided with Yuki Tsunoda at turn one, causing significant damage to the FW47’s right sidepod. The debris spread onto the track brought out the safety car.

Sainz initially continued but suffered more misery as he was handed a 10-second penalty for forcing Kimi Antonelli off the track. The Spaniard retired the car on lap 45 while Tsunoda finished ninth for his first points as a Red Bull driver.

Speaking on the Williams Racing YouTube channel, team principal James Vowles pinned more blame on Tsunoda for the incident with Sainz as the 30-year-old suffered another miserable weekend with the Grove-based outfit.

“I first looked to see if there was an intentional reason behind either car hitting the other. That’s not my observation of it.

“Carlos went deep into the corner but Tsunoda conversely lost control a little bit, he was sliding effectively the rear axle at the wrong point and the cars came together.

“So then you adjudicate, was it 50/50? I don’t think so in my opinion, I think that Tsunoda was more to blame than Carlos but whether it was 60 or 70% in his favour, now you’re just into subjective material.

“So my opinion out of it is probably, it was more than dismissing the incident but ultimately the damage to Carlos’s car was done. It was many seconds a lap worth of damage and his race was over at that point.”

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What does Carlos Sainz have to do to improve his fortunes at Williams?

One point from four Grand Prix and one Sprint race is far from what Sainz would have wanted from his Williams career before the season started. The Spaniard is on the back foot as teammate Albon sits eighth in the standings with 18 points.

The Grove-based outfit have already beaten their points tally from 2024 after four events in 2025. Vowles has ‘mixed emotions’ about achieving this feat as it highlights how poor the team were last year – Sainz will no doubt be feeling the same after his start to the season.

The 30-year-old showed encouraging signs in Bahrain by reaching Q3, but he fell back during the race before colliding with Tsunoda. He is still discovering how the FW47 operates to get it in the best performance window.

Albon has told Sainz to ‘adapt’ his driving style to get accustomed to the car. The Thai driver says there are some corners where Williams cannot do anything to help – the Spaniard may have to make changes to find a solution.