Carlos Sainz has expressed that his innate desire to restore Williams to the pinnacle in Formula 1 is so strong that he views his venture with the team as his “life project”.
Sainz’s move to Williams has seen his name be etched onto an esteemed and exclusive list as he’s now only the third driver to have driven for F1’s three most successful sides.
Like Sainz, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost had stints with McLaren and Ferrari prior to a switch to Williams, where both men ended up securing the ultimate prize with title successes in 1992 and 1993, respectively.
However, unlike his predecessors, Sainz has arrived at Williams at a time when the team isn’t regarded as a leading contender. The Grove-based squad has not been crowned champions since 1997 and has not taken a race win since the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.
But with James Vowles at the helm, Williams is undergoing an extensive rebuild that the Briton is hoping will culminate in the team recapturing its former glories down the line. Sainz has brought into Vowles’ vision, and an immediate move down the pecking order has not diminished his ambition to succeed. Instead, the Madrid-born racer has vowed that he is now even more motivated as he endeavours to emulate Mansell and Prost.
“Nothing would make me happier in my life than going into a project as young as Williams is and making it to the top with them,” Sainz told Motorsport Week in an exclusive interview. “I think that’s the best story an athlete can do, is build a family and win with that family of people.
“I feel Williams is a good place; it’s already showing a lot of progress compared to last year in that sense. And yeah, nothing motivates me more than bringing back one of the most historical teams in Formula 1 back to winning ways. I always say to James it’s my life project now, it’s what I want to make happen.”
Sainz not getting caught up in Williams’ long-term plans
Williams has hedged its bets on the upcoming rules overhaul assisting its quest to reduce the gap to those ahead, with even the team’s strongest start to a campaign since 2017 not enough to entice it to invest more resources in improving the current car.
But although Vowles and Alex Albon have earmarked 2028 as the date when Williams is aiming to have a race-winning package, Sainz has emphasised that his attention is on ensuring the team is well-placed to capitalise if that moment comes to pass.
“I prefer to think more short-term and cover the steps more every six months,” he explained. “I like thinking in one six months by six months. Now we’re defining next year’s car, and we have also six months ahead of us where we need to improve the race team, weekend execution to make sure that by any chance next year’s car is allowing us to fight for bigger things than this year’s car, we are not making the mistakes that we’re doing this year in weekend execution.
“So my focus is always six months ahead more or less in F1, because that’s where the driver can have an influence. It’s on the next six months of the project you can develop things on the simulator for six months’ time, you can develop the race team strategy, weekend execution in six months’ time. So I always have a very six-month vision of where we want to be in six months and that’s where I try to have the most influence.”
Likewise, Sainz is reluctant to place an expectation on what Williams can accomplish with a clean slate next season until he discovers how competitive the car at his and team-mate Albon’s disposal will be.
“Yeah, my target is also I think like always to judge how well Williams has done in that development process and which car do we have for the beginning of the season. Then you set your targets depending on the car that we see in the first race. Like we did this year in Australia,” he elaborated.
“For me, it’s too early to know whether we will be outdeveloped or we will come up with a good car. Regulations are so different and so completely nothing to do with this year that we don’t know who’s gonna be outdeveloped in one year’s time or not. It’s too far away and what I’m worrying about now is what I can [do to] help [Mercedes] HPP in the simulator to give us a better software for next year’s car. What I can do to develop this team execution-wise, race weekend execution-wise in the short term because that’s what’s gonna pay back in six months.”
READ MORE – Exclusive: Carlos Sainz reveals ‘important piece of the puzzle’ that attracted him to Williams
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