Two podiums and 64 points saw Carlos Sainz secure 9th place in last year’s drivers standings. All things considered, his move to Williams appeared a clear success at the end of last season.
Of course, Williams lacked the performance to match Ferrari – the team Sainz was departing after Lewis Hamilton’s arrival.
Still, the Spaniard jumped into a team who had climbed to the front of the midfield. This contributed to a sense of optimism for the British squad’s chances in these 2026 regulations.
Unfortunately for Sainz, the team now finds itself near the back of the field. According to the 31-year-old, he anticipated a tough start several months ago.
Sainz explains Williams difficulties
In the context of last season, Carlos Sainz’s P9 result in China might seem relatively unremarkable for Williams.
Of course, the team is in a very different situation to start the season. Despite all the ambition shown by team principal James Vowles, the FW48 is well off the mark
The first signs of trouble emerged in January, when Williams admitted they would not attend the shakedown in Barcelona. A variety of rumours, including those of an overweight car, began to circulate.
At the time, Vowles tried to downplay this setback. The former Mercedes engineer argued that Williams could still collect sufficient data at the Bahrain test.
He also dismissed some of the claims regarding the FW48’s excess weight. With that said, the first round in Australia exposed that Williams are several steps off the pace.
In declarations quoted by Spanish outlet MARCA, Carlos Sainz has reviewed the team’s last few months:
“We are the same in qualifying as in the race – we see the same difference to the other teams.
“But in the race more things happen, whilst in qualifying in China everyone is capable of extracting the potential from the car.
“It was a shock [the team’s slow start] for me, for the team, for Alex [Albon], for the engineers. It’s not a secret that it’s difficult.
“I could already smell it in December and January. I anticipated the setback from those talks about delays, not getting to the first test, hearing the first numbers of the excess weight.
“It was not a promising start. But I knew at one point Williams would have a setback, the road to success is never a straight line.”
The midfield battle
To some extent, Aston Martin’s nightmare start with Honda has distracted from the troubles at Williams.
Even with the AMR26’s wide range of problems, it cannot be said Williams are in a much better position. Only Aston and Cadillac have started the year with worse packages than the British team.
On paper, there is reason to expect they can recover. After all, they benefit from having the Mercedes engine, which has proven the benchmark at the dawn of these regulations.
Moreover, eliminating some of their excess weight should unlock a notable amount of lap-time as the season progresses.
Still, other teams (albeit to a lesser extent) will also make their cars lighter throughout the year. In this sense, Williams still have a lot of work to do with their chassis.
Exploiting the Mercedes power unit to the fullest won’t be easy either, even if James Vowles is confident his team can eventually maximise the tools at their disposal and optimise deployment in the same way Mercedes do.
This weekend in Japan, Williams can aim to collect more data and further understand where to take the FW48 with their first upgrades of the campaign.