Smoothening the operation: what Sainz brings to Williams in 2025
- Kevin Doldersum
- Feb 3
- 5 min read
Carlos Sainz was in absolute shock after Ferrari announced 7-time world champion Lewis Hamilton would take up the second spot in the team alongside Charles Leclerc a little over a year ago, leaving the Spaniard to accept his faith and search for a new adventure. Half a year later, at last, Sainz confirmed he would stay in Formula 1 for the 2025 season as the Williams team welcomed the Spaniard on board. A four-time Grand Prix winner probably deserves better than moving to the second worst team on the grid but unfortunately, that is just the way the pendulum happens to swing sometimes.
A struggling team with immense history
Before diving further into Sainz, let’s take a good hard look at the team taking him in for this season. Williams, to any motorsport fan around the world a name with a status. Some of Formula 1’s finest drivers have achieved greatness with the British team developed by Frank Williams in the late 70s. Four-time world champion Alain Prost, three-time world champion Nelson Piquet, and moustache heroes Keke Rosberg and Nigell Mansell have all won a driver’s title with the British team. In total the team wrapped up 7 driver’s championships and 9 constructor’s titles in 17 years from 1980 until 1997. Since the early 2000s however, Williams slowly started to fade away into the midfield, and during the new turbo-hybrid era starting in 2014 their case went from bad to worse as they dropped further and further down the order into what would eventually be last place in the standings by 2018. During this time, the team struggled as Frank Williams stepped down from his role as team principal, bringing forth his daughter Claire as deputy principal. To most, Claire was seen as team principal, but she explains why she never took on the role to its full extent: “I was very happy operating as deputy team principal. My father had been the team principal of Williams forever, and it didn’t feel right taking over that title – he was still there, he was still in the business every day, he just wasn’t functioning in an executive capacity” (Claire Williams to Planetf1.com). After struggling to gain back performance, and being unable to finance the team, Claire Williams made the tough decision to sell the family team to USA investor group Dorilton Capitol, who promised to work from their UK factory and maintain the name that could be considered sacred to the sport.
Since the buyout in 2020, Williams has delivered some stunning performances at the hands of current Mercedes driver George Russell and ex-Red Bull driver Alexander Albon, the latter returning to the paddock with the team in 2022 after racing in DTM for a year because Pérez took over his seat alongside Max Verstappen. In 2021, a season taunted by the tragic passing of Sir Frank Williams, resurrection could be used as a word to sum up their season as they achieved eighth place after being last in each of the three years prior. Unfortunately, Williams dropped to last in 2022 as car regulations changed, but promising news came about when Mercedes’ head of strategy James Vowles was announced as new team principal for 2023. Vowles led the team to seventh in the standings that year, yet in 2024 a crash heavy drivers duo cost the team a lot of money for development leading to merely a ninth-place finish. Structurally there were also issues to smoothen out, as Albon and Vowles spoke about how their used to be a mess of an Excel sheet in which components were sourced.
Securing consistent pace
Thus far for the team, let’s look at the driver strengthening the William lineup for this season. Carlos Sainz overcame his initial shock, and looks forward to assist Williams in returning to the forefront of the pack in the coming years. The Spaniard has little to prove in terms of driving skills, though he never managed to beat Leclerc over the course of a season in their four years as teammates he was always right up there to challenge the Monegasque. Sainz’s biggest loss was often seen in qualifying, where Leclerc was the clear number one, but on race day the two could not be anymore closely matched. So, Williams will certainly know that they have secured a man that can drive fast, but above all knows where the limits of a racecar are. Vowles admitted that the 2025 car is compromised as much of the budget went into fixing damage to their cars in 2024, making the arrival of a man like Sainz even better as the team should be able to focus on developments rather than repairs.
Having been on the hunt for a seat since February 2024, July came about, and a question arose: why was Sainz so sure of Williams? Well, according to the man himself it was Williams’ lead driver Albon that ultimately convinced him to join the project, as it had not gone unnoticed to the Thai driver how the team faltered so often over the years. On top of that Vowles said to motorsport.com that “One of the elements that are great with Carlos and Alex is that neither one has any politics, they don't have a political bone, they just want the car to be quick and they want to perform the best that we can within that environment”. Having Sainz in the car should help Williams progress in the future.
Securing a seat is still better than spending a year on the side in a sport that moves as fast as Formula 1. Options for Sainz did run out quickly, and so going to the back marker team Williams was one of the few choices remaining. Inconsistency is the best word to describe Williams in the past few seasons, however if there is one driver in the sport known for smooth sailing behind the wheel it is Carlos Sainz. This partnership could therefore be mutually beneficial, as Sainz is excited to be on the grid and Williams is thrilled to have a multiple race winner on board. With the pairing of Sainz and Albon, the drivers are certainly not hampering the team performance anymore and the path into the future looks bright considering the slight upward curve under Vowles’ leadership.
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