Untelevised team radio from the Chinese Grand Prix has revealed the moment Carlos Sainz reassured Williams that he is “a lot faster than this” after a challenging start to the F1 2025 season.

Sainz is in the early weeks of his Williams career having joined the Grove-based team from Ferrari on a multi-year contract from the F1 2025 season.

Carlos Sainz to Williams: ‘I am a lot faster than this’

Despite his lofty reputation as a four-time race winner, the Spaniard lagged behind team-mate Alex Albon across the first two rounds of the new campaign in Australia and China.

After crashing out early in the wet in Melbourne as Albon secured a fine fourth place, Sainz was eliminated in Q2 in Shanghai with a lap three tenths slower than his team-mate, who landed a second consecutive Q3 appearance.

Albon was classified seventh in China after the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were disqualified, with Sainz scoring his first point as a Williams driver having been promoted to 10th.

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However, the Williams pair were separated by a huge 20 seconds at the chequered flag in Shanghai as Sainz’s struggles continued.

And in an untelevised team radio exchange at the end of the race, Sainz moved to reassure his new team that he is “a lot faster” than he currently looks.

Yet he warned that there is still “a lot of work to do” before he is fully up to speed at Williams.

Moments after Sainz crossed the finish line in China, his race engineer said: “Carlos, well done.

“Tough race out there, but there’s a lot of good learning that we have.

“I think we got a little bit unlucky. The tyres held on better than expected, so this didn’t quite pan out the way I wanted it to, but I’m encouraged with the car pace, and we’ll build on that for Japan. Well done.”

Sainz replied: “Yeah. I think we improved the car compared to yesterday but, from my side, a lot of work to do still. Things to find.

“I think I am a lot faster than this.”

The race engineer added: “You’re, of course, a lot faster than this. We’ll do this together.”

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Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at last month’s pre-season test in Bahrain, Sainz hinted that he was braced for a challenging start to his Williams given his lack of preparation.

And he called for F1 to make an effort to expand the pre-season testing calendar with teams and drivers restricted to just a single three-day winter test over recent years.

Sainz said: “[It] feels weird that I got my day and a half [in the car] and now I need to go racing.

“It feels not enough. Feels very little – ridiculously little – the amount of time that we get into our cars before going to a race.

“But as ready as I can be with a day and a half, but I guess we’ll take it and see where we are.

“Even though I’m obviously no rookie, that day and a half of testing, I think, is frustrating for me too, but I cannot imagine even for a rookie.

“I understand how difficult that makes things and how tricky the start of the season will be for some of these guys.

“At the same time, if you could get that TPC [Testing of Previous Car], also that is relevant, and that can still help a lot, but experience is experience and you only gain that on track with a real car that you’re going to drive that year.

“I think F1, if I’m honest, could do a bit of an effort in trying to do a better job in how we go testing.

“In the end, you have a lot of teams spending infinite amounts of money in simulators.

“You have drivers flying to the UK from Monaco to go to the simulator and I don’t understand why we get three days of testing when all that money could be invested into eight days of testing.

“I’m not asking for too much – eight, 10 days, where every team picks their places to test.

“It’s nice to have a collective test, I think this should stay. But my proposal would be to have put in the budget cap the number of days.

“Put in the budget cap the simulator also and see where the teams want to spend their money.

“If it’s in the sim or it’s in 10 testing days, rookies would benefit and I think F1 teams would benefit, because even though the simulators are good, they are not as good as some of the engineers or people tend to believe they are.

“I would always choose testing [over] going to a simulator.”

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