Carlos Sainz’s preparations for his opening campaign with Williams in Formula 1 have ramped up with a test in the team’s 2023 car at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya.
Sainz, who lost his previous drive at Ferrari to Lewis Hamilton, has been present at the home of the Spanish Grand Prix alongside new team-mate Alex Albon since Sunday.
The duo have been driving the FW45, the car Williams raced in 2023 and the most recent machine that complies with the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) regulations.
Sainz’s outing is the second time he has sampled Williams hardware, the Spaniard having run the team’s 2024 FW46 at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi in December.
Williams boss James Vowles, who was instrumental in Sainz turning down interest elsewhere, has hailed the impact the four-time F1 race winner has had on the squad.
“He’s fitting in perfectly,” Vowles said at the Autosport Awards. “He’s a brilliant personality who brings not just race-winning pedigree, but this want and desire for Williams to be successful.
“I was with him and Alex [Albon] for three, four hours just talking through plans for the year.
“And his contributions are absolutely key for driving this team forward because it’s now into a level of detail where you’re starting to chase milliseconds as opposed to the big ticket items we were before.”
He added: “You can see from the moment he jumped in the car in Abu Dhabi. His mind switched. This is where he wants to be.
“This is what he wants to do. He’s part of our success story.
“And already in the shape or in the space of just a few weeks, real positive momentum from ideas, concepts, how we can change, how we can move forward is coming.”
Williams is the third team to have turned laps in Barcelona in recent times, with both Ferrari and Sauber also having given their permanent drivers time in older-spec cars.
The mileage that each team amassed will be deducted from their respective allowance of 1000 kilometres, a limit that the FIA has introduced from this campaign.
McLaren complete Pirelli test in the wet
Meanwhile, McLaren were active last week as the team completed a two-day test at the Paul Ricard Circuit in France, aiding Pirelli’s development of its new 2026 tyres.
The wheels, which will be brought in alongside an extensive regulation change, will retain the current 18-inch rim diameter, but will have a smaller width on the front and rear.
The French venue, which last hosted an F1 race in 2022, remained soaked using water tankers and sprinklers as McLaren tested various Pirelli wet weather prototype tyres.
Oscar Piastri began driving duties on Tuesday, racking up 120 laps with a best time of 1:07.008s on the 3.463-kilometre ‘2A’ variation of the Paul Ricard Circuit.
The Australian handed the MCL38 on Wednesday over to team-mate Lando Norris, who added 123 more laps to the count with a quickest time of 1:07.956s.
“The first test session of 2025 proved very useful,” Pirelli Director of Motorsport Mario Isola said.
“When testing wet weather tyres, it’s not easy to consistently reproduce the same track conditions to get reliable data, but over these past two days, we were able to acquire plenty of information that will be vital when it comes to defining the new intermediate and extreme wet tyres.”
Isola added: “It’s going to be a very busy start to the season for those of our engineers working on development.
“After this test at Paul Ricard, we have a further two test sessions in the coming two weeks. Both of them are in Spain and will focus on dry weather tyres.
On 4 and 5 February, McLaren and Ferrari will be on track at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit and then, on 12 and 13 at Jerez de la Frontera, Alpine will be working with us on both days, while McLaren and Mercedes will do one day each.”
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