Carlos Sainz has branded Williams’ 2026 troubles as an “eye-opener” as he detailed the “character-building year” he has endured in Formula 1 this season.
Heading into the summer break, after the Hungarian GP, Sainz has delivered a telling insight into how expectations have crumbled within the Grove-based team.
The Spaniard signed for Williams, in 2025, leading the team to a fifth-placed Constructors’ finish, last season with two podiums to his name.
That said, this season, the FW48 has been a difficult car to extract pace from – resulting in the team only scoring 11 points from 11 rounds, so far.
Reflecting on the disappointing string of results, this year, Sainz conceded that the team had “overdelivered” on his expectations last season.
“I think I’ve been very open and very clear about the fact that I think in 2025 we overdelivered and, if anything, the results were better than what I expected when I signed my Williams contract in 2024,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“The 2025 car was a very good car, a car that was sometimes only three or four tenths off pole position, a car where you could feel that the balance was good.”
Williams had sacrificed upgrading the FW47, mid-way through last season, with the hopes of focusing on the development of this year’s challenger in a bid to out-do its rivals.
The FW48, however, had been a troubled project from the get-go – suffering from weight issues, and a lack of aerodynamic prowess.
For Sainz, facing the harsh reality of Williams’ competitiveness as against its 2025 anomaly has been an “eye-opener” and a “character-building” experience for the entire team.
“Obviously, going into 2026, I expected, if anything, with more time to develop the 2026 car and a new set of regulations, that we could potentially either stay where we were or make a small step forward,” he added.
“Yet time has proven to me that it has obviously been the opposite, or the other way around, and that as a team we are further away from the top than we thought we were at the end of 2025.
“It’s definitely been a character-building year for the whole team, a bit of an eye-opener in terms of how much work there is still to do if we even want to consider fighting with a top team in the future.”
Carlos Sainz has no doubt Williams has “capacity” to overturn its F1 2026 deficit
As things stand, Williams sit ninth in the Constructors’, in the mix with the likes of Audi and Haas.
The Grove-based squad will also be bringing an iterative upgrade package to the Azerbaijan GP.
That said, Sainz doesn’t expect the team’s performances to transform overnight. While he does not doubt Williams’ “capacity” to overturn its competitive miseries, he highlighted how implementing rectifications on its package can only be achieved in the long-term.
“A lot of things have been learned, a lot of things we’ve realised, and unfortunately it has been a bad year so far,” Sainz said.
“We need to conclude and understand why and what happened. I think we have a pretty good understanding by now.
“The capacity to turn it around is there, but obviously in Formula 1 it takes time. It takes time, effort, budget-cap money and a lot of analysis, and that’s exactly where we are right now.”
With the midfield leaders in Racing Bulls and Alpine out of touch, Williams still can still launch a bid to secure P7 in the Constructors’ when the summer break finally concludes at the Dutch GP, in late-August.
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