McLaren‘s Lando Norris has backed Carlos Sainz to “propel” Williams “back to the top” of Formula 1.
Norris and Sainz were McLaren team-mates in 2019 and ’20 before the Spaniard embarked on a four-year stint with Ferrari.
Sainz’s time at the Scuderia is now at an end with seven-time Driver’s Champion Lewis Hamilton taking his place alongside Charles Leclerc in 2025.
After a summer of deliberation, Sainz chose Williams as his next F1 adventure and is tasked with bringing the Grove-based outfit back to its former glory days.
Norris was asked after the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix how it felt to see Sainz go from a top team to a back marker and responded by saying: “He’ll be back.
“Williams has been improving a lot,” Norris added.
“They’ve not had someone with a lot of genuine experience from a top team.
“Carlos will for sure add to that and propel the team forward even more.
“They’ve gone under a lot of changes in the last few months and year or so. Even this year, there were some times when Williams was very quick.
“I’m expecting to still see him on track. I’m sure next year, Williams will take a good step forwards from where they are now.”
Norris added that it’s hard to “know when [Williams will] be fighting,” before pointing towards the new rule-cycle in 2026 being a potential point to catapult the Grove-based team forward.
“It’s a year which is just over one year away from now, but 2026 is a year where anything can happen,” Norris said.
“Williams can be at the top all of a sudden. So we’ll wait and see.”
Sainz ‘deserves to fight for championships’
Sainz added two GP wins to his victory tally with Ferrari this season and leaves the Scuderia just as it narrowly missed out on winning the 2024 Constructors’ title with a 14-point deficit to McLaren.
The Spaniard did all he could in Abu Dhabi to help Ferrari win that title, finishing second to Norris, looming in his rear-view mirrors as the former team-mates circulated the Yas Marina Circuit.
“Carlos is someone I know well and I’ve started racing in Formula 1 with [him],” Norris said.
“You always knew he was going to be there and he was always going to put up a good fight today.
“In all of my meetings this morning, I was saying to the guys, ‘like, let’s be careful of Carlos, OK?’
“Because I was ready for him to attack a lot and put up a good fight.”
That fight from the Spaniard will now be deployed at Williams, a team that finished ninth in the 2024 standings.
Until Williams can improve this will render Sainz out of race-winning contention, which Norris sees as a “shame.”
The Briton said, “I think [Sainz has] proven himself enough in Formula 1 that he deserves a good seat.
“He deserves to fight for championships and wins and those types of things and it’s a shame when that opportunity is lost,” he added.
“But it’s not because he’s not got talent or he’s not got the ability, right?
“It’s because it’s the biggest name in Formula 1 who wants his seat. And yeah, we’ll see in the future what it takes.
‘See how Lewis does in Ferrari with Charles and against Charles.
“But [Sainz has] proven himself enough.
“So I don’t think anyone needs to doubt him. And I’m sure his time will come back again and he’ll help Williams fight back to the top.”
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