Carlos Sainz has iterated his confidence in the Williams’ long-term Formula 1 project, despite admitting to a ‘test of faith’ after the team’s 2026 chassis issues.
The Grove-based squad has been severely tested after its FW48 was produced with a chassis heavier than that of its rivals, curtailing pre-season hope of building on its impressive 2025 showing.
Sainz was, of course, taking a gamble by joining the team upon his departure from Ferrari, one that was vindicated with the car scoring two podiums via his hand in Baku and Qatar, as well as another top-three finish in the US Grand Prix Sprint.
But there is no doubt that the four-time Grand Prix-winner will have been left frustrated by the team’s tough start to the 2026 campaign.
Ahead of this weekend’s Monaco GP, Sainz was asked if his faith was tested by the situation that has presented itself.
“Tested my faith? For sure,” he admitted to media, including Motorsport Week.
“When you go from scoring podiums at the end of last year to suddenly being where we were two seconds and a half of the pace at the beginning of the year, two seconds is a big test of faith or a big shock to the system.
“I was the first one to say to James [Vowles, Team Principal] and to the management that it was not expected. but at the same time we had very open and clear conversations of where things started going wrongly.
“I think we did a very thorough analysis with some very important members of the team and I think once we all understood where it had started to go wrong and how I very quickly realised that it might have actually done good things for the team this bump.
“If we wouldn’t have hit this bump I think there might have been things in the team that we would have never changed.
“Thanks to the shock of that bump we definitely put a very strong action to correct them, to erase them from the system, to for sure try and not happen again. That made me recover a lot, that faith and the belief in the project.”
Carlos Sainz confesses that 2026 is ‘the opposite’ of 2025 early-season expectations
Sainz’s nous with development helped the FW47 haul itself to a position of being capable of securing fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
It left the Williams team hopeful of it being a foundation on which to build amid F1’s new regulations cycle, but so far, to no avail.
Asked if he knew this was a possibility, knowing the team is still in a transitional period, Sainz confessed 2025 exceeded all expectations, with this season so far being a polar opposite.
“Maybe last year was almost too good for where the team was at? A combination.I think last year we over-delivered as a team,” he said.
“I think that FW47 was a good race car with its strengths and weaknesses, but we definitely managed to create a car that was able to score podiums, [and] my first year with the team, that was not expected.
“I was not expecting that – I was expecting to maybe be a solid midfield car, but not to at races be fighting with Mercedes and Ferrari head-to-head, straight outright pace.
“That probably maybe also raised my expectations for 2026. Then 2026 came and it was almost the opposite.
“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, let’s say this start of my life in Williams. I don’t know, I think I was always expecting to hit a bump at some point.
“I think the road to recovery of a team is never a straight line and if not, the best example with McLaren at the beginning of 2023, they were really far down and they ended the year in a high. From there came the big progress
“I think I always expected maybe not as big of a bump as we hit at the beginning. but at the same time, I think it’s propelled some very interesting changes inside the team and some very interesting changes of mentality, changes of approach that were needed that maybe without the bump we would have never changed and we would have never corrected.”
Williams has evidently shown much improvement since that time, giving the team something to build on with a number of races still to run until the summer break.
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