As the Formula 1 season kicks off with the Australian Grand Prix melting into the next event in China, drivers coming off the back of a challenging weekend have had just a handful of days to recover before once again addressing media.

One of the biggest talking points since Australia was the conflict between Lewis Hamilton and race engineer Riccardo Adami — but new Williams driver Carlos Sainz states he’s in the exact same boat.

Carlos Sainz missed “a massive learning curve”

Much has been made about the struggles Lewis Hamilton faced on his much-hyped Ferrari debut, particularly as it concerns his conversation with new race engineer Riccardo Adami.

During the race, Hamilton routinely pleaded that Adami “please let me drive” as the engineer suggested pressing certain buttons on the steering wheel or initiating an overtake on a car that was too far ahead to be overtaken.

Pundit Ralf Schumacher accused Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc of being “stroppy” over the radio, for example, while former F1 driver Christian Danner stated, “Hamilton has to get to grips with the Ferrari system and not let Ferrari adapt to Hamilton.”

But Hamilton is only one of several drivers to make a big move in 2025. The driver he replaced at Ferrari, Carlos Sainz Jr., is one such example, and Sainz has also highlighted the challenges of moving to a new team and learning the ropes with a new engineer.

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Addressing media ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz was asked if he experienced any similar issues with his own race engineer, or if his integration into Williams was proving to be significantly different.

“No, no, this is the same. It’s exactly the same,” Sainz said.

“The only difference is that unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to drive such a demanding race from communication’s side in Australia, and I’ve missed that experience to build with my engineer.”

Sainz unfortunately retired from the Australian Grand Prix before a single lap had been completed, as a torque burst following a failed gear change sent him spinning into the wall.

The Spaniard did return to the pit wall, where he offered his own perspective on how teammate Alex Albon’s race should be strategized. That experience likely provided him with some unique insight into how Williams operates, but he was still deprived of a chance to experience that firsthand while behind the wheel.

Sainz continued, “We were talking about it just now, it’s like, we need to review this race and go through it together as I was driving it because it is exactly a kind of race where I think I can make a difference as a driver, if you help me read the situation well, and we could have caught a good result. Like in this case, Alex did, if we communicate well.

“We’re gonna go through back at base at some point this race as if I was driving it, just to make sure we’ve actually raced the race, because we’ve missed an incredible chance to build up on it.

“Still 23 left, so I still have plenty of them to come, but yeah, it’s that one race where you have a massive learning curve, probably like Lewis and Ricky did, and they learn a lot from it, and keep moving forward.”

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