Carlos Sainz pointed to unexpected floor damage as the main reason for his surprise Q1 elimination in qualifying for the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix, revealing his Williams car was “pulling to one side”.
The Spanish driver suffered his third consecutive exit in the first session of qualifying as he qualified in 19th place.
Meanwhile, team-mate Alex Albon progressed to Q2 with a solid 12th place, but it’s been a challenging weekend overall for the Grove-based squad in Spielberg.
After the first runs in Q1, Sainz was already in the drop zone, while Albon sat just above the cut-off. On their final attempts, Albon delivered an impressive lap to briefly jump to fifth.
However, despite bolting on a second set of Soft tyres, the Spaniard only made a marginal improvement before slipping back into the bottom five as others improved.
He attempted another run but couldn’t find any time around the Red Bull Ring to improve.
Over team radio, a frustrated Sainz immediately complained: “There is damage in the car. The car is undriveable. When I say undriveable, it’s pulling under braking, no load in high speed, undriveable.”
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the session, he confirmed the issue.
“We put new brakes on for quali like we always do, and as soon as I went out of the pits the car was, when I was braking hard, pulling to one side,” he said.
“We could see I had quite a lot of damage to the floor, which I expected given how bad the car was to drive.
“In the end, obviously not happy — too many issues, too many problems, and a Q1 exit.”
Sainz rues ongoing issues but hopeful race pace can salvage Austria weekend
Even without the damage, Sainz was asked whether the challenges of getting the Soft tyres to work would have made his qualifying session difficult regardless.
He admitted that Saturday simply wasn’t his day: “We’ll see tomorrow. Today was not our day — definitely way too many problems again in qualifying.
“We need to find out why we are accumulating so many problems.
Sainz’s struggles at Williams continue, following a 17th-place qualifying in Canada and 18th in Spain as he adjusts to life with his new team.
After Saturday’s session in Austria, Albon has now outqualified Sainz seven times in the first 11 rounds of the 2025 season.
The pace in the earlier practice session for the British outfit wasn’t amazing, but Sainz held optimism for Sunday, considering his race pace.
He added: “But I’ve been the fastest of the midfield in race pace, which gives us encouragement for tomorrow, although we’re definitely starting a bit too far back”
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