(Motorsport-Total.com) – Carlos Sainz has given Williams a remarkably frank assessment ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix. While the traditional team continues to struggle with an overweight car, from the Spaniard’s perspective, the real problem lies much deeper.
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Since the start of the season, Williams has been working to remove several kilograms from the FW48. Lighter components are to be gradually introduced to bring the car closer to the prescribed minimum weight. Progress has already been made, but the problem has not yet been completely solved.
“We are at a similar level to Canada,” explains Sainz. While some steps have been taken since the season opener in Australia, more kilograms still need to follow. The four-time Grand Prix winner generally rates Williams’ consistent work on the issue positively, despite the difficult starting position.
“That’s encouraging,” says Sainz. At the same time, he makes no secret of the fact that the development is not progressing fast enough for him. “It will probably take a little longer than I would like until the weight is reduced to zero.”
Budget cap complicates the catch-up race
For Sainz, however, it is clear that the situation in the budget cap era is more complex than before. Every development measure costs money, which is why Williams has to carefully weigh up which parts are produced first. The team has to decide which updates not only save weight but also deliver additional performance at the same time.
“You have to set the priorities in the right order,” explains the Spaniard. That’s why he tries to look at the situation pragmatically. “I have to be patient.” While the engineers are working on the technical catch-up, he is concentrating on his own performance.
“My performance has been pretty good this year.” But although overweight has been one of the dominant topics at Williams for months, Sainz by no means sees it as the main cause of the disappointing results.
“The car is fundamentally not good enough”
When asked whether Williams is losing valuable development resources due to the weight problem and therefore can never exploit the full potential of the car, Sainz delivers perhaps the most remarkable statement of the entire media discussion.
“We recognize that this car is fundamentally not good enough – even without the weight problem.” With this, the Spaniard makes it clear that the difficulties go far beyond a few extra kilograms. “As a team, we have to accept that we have underdelivered not only on weight.”
The pure performance of the car also does not meet expectations. “We have also not delivered on the car’s performance.” Williams is therefore forced to invest money simultaneously in weight reduction and in classic performance upgrades.
For Sainz, the analysis is clear: “If I’m to be completely honest: We have underdelivered in many, many areas this year.”
The big shock of 2026
Particularly serious for the Spaniard is the fact that the problems came completely unexpectedly. After a strong 2025 season, Williams had hoped to continue the positive trend. Instead, the team experienced a dramatic drop in performance.
“We experienced a pretty big setback at the beginning of the year,” says Sainz. The numbers illustrate the extent. While Williams was still regularly fighting for podium places at the end of 2025, the team was sometimes two and a half seconds per lap behind the leaders at the beginning of this season.
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“When you go from podium finishes to suddenly being two and a half seconds behind, that’s a real test of your faith.” Sainz openly admits that the situation shook him. “It was a big shock to the system.”
Internally, no one had expected such a drastic setback either. “I was the first to tell James and the management that this had not been expected.”
Why Sainz has regained his faith
Despite the harsh words, the Spaniard has now regained faith in the Williams project. The decisive factor, according to him, was the team’s reaction to the crisis. After the disappointing first races, Williams, according to Sainz, analyzed in great detail how this setback could have happened in the first place.
“We had very open and clear discussions about where things went wrong.” A comprehensive investigation was carried out together with key decision-makers. When the causes were identified, his perspective changed.
“Very quickly I realized that this setback might even have helped the team.” Sainz even goes a step further: In his opinion, Williams might never have recognized crucial weaknesses within the organization without the crisis.
“If we hadn’t experienced this setback, we might never have changed some things in the team.” The sheer force of the problem forced management to act. “James and his team took very strong measures.”
The goal was to permanently remove the identified problems from the processes and ensure that similar mistakes do not recur in the future. This consistency gave him new confidence. “That brought back a large part of my faith and my trust in the project.”
Williams between over- and underperformance
Interestingly, Sainz sees both the strong 2025 season and the weak 2026 season as extremes. In his opinion, Williams had even overperformed its own capabilities last year. “I think we overperformed in 2025.”
While the FW47 was a good car, the regular podium battles surprised even him. “I didn’t expect us to fight directly against Mercedes and Ferrari.” The strong results may also have raised his expectations for the new season.
Then came the cold shower. “2026 came, and suddenly it was almost the complete opposite.” Despite all the difficulties, Sainz is already looking ahead. He places particularly high hopes on the FW50 for the coming season.
“I believe that the FW50 should be a significantly better overall package than the current car.” For the current year, however, he formulates much more modest goals. “If we manage to reach the top of the midfield with this car, I would be satisfied.”
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