Sainz Declares Williams F1 Rebuild a “Life Project” as Focus Remains on Short-Term Gains
Silverstone, UK - Carlos Sainz has described his move to Williams F1 as a “life project,” emphasizing his commitment to spearheading the team’s resurgence despite a intentional focus on incremental improvements rather than solely relying on the 2026 regulation changes. The Spaniard, who will join Williams in 2025, revealed he consistently tells team principal James Vowles, “it’s my life project now, it’s what I want to make happen.”
Williams is banking on the upcoming rules overhaul to close the performance gap to leading teams, but has refrained from significant investment in the current car. While Vowles and teammate Alex Albon have publicly targeted 2028 for a race-winning package, Sainz is prioritizing immediate gains.
“I prefer to think more short-term and cover the steps more every six months,” Sainz 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.”
Sainz stressed the driver’s influence is greatest within a six-month timeframe, focusing on simulator progress, race team strategy, and weekend execution. He is currently working with Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP) to improve software for the 2026 car.
He also cautioned against premature expectations for the 2026 season, stating, “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.”
Sainz acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding the new regulations, adding, “Regulations are so diffrent and so entirely 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.”
