Carlos Sainz fears Williams has ‘serious issues’ as development concerns grow

Carlos Sainz has said Williams has faced “serious issues” in that, despite placing upgrades on its car and reducing weight, its gap to the front has increased since the start of the season.

Sainz is without a point in the last four races, with teammate Alex Albon having last scored in Monaco in June – but neither driver has contested for the top 10 consistently of late.

Carlos Sainz raises Williams development concerns after British Grand Prix

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The 2026 season had been one always labelled with a high development factor, with teams able to find larger gains on their cars in the early stages of these new regulations.

Williams was widely believed to have started the season at least 20 kilograms overweight in an immediate cost of lap time, and while weight-saving measures have been brought into place along with performance upgrades, Sainz believes the team has been on a par or even behind the development rate of its rivals.

With that comes conversations behind the scenes at Grove, and having moved up to 10th place on the first lap at Silverstone, the Spanish driver eventually finished the British Grand Prix down in 17th.

All of that combined left him in a downbeat mood after the race.

Admitting the gap to Audi and Alpine ahead was “simply too big” to keep up with, Sainz told PlanetF1.com and others at Silverstone: “Concerning and frustrating, because it starts to be a bad trend this year that we don’t seem to really find a lot of lap time when the upgrades are coming.

“We need to have a good sit down now this week, analyse what’s happening, because unfortunately we’ve shed a lot of weight out of the car by now, but the gap to the front is increasing and the gap to the rear of the midfield keeps increasing, so we don’t seem to be finding the lap-by-lap [pace] we expected.

“Obviously, I’m not happy. Today, I’m very obviously upset. You’ll see me now, I think a bit upset – worried, maybe, is the right word.

“No-one likes getting overtaken, especially after so many good starts that we’re doing this year, and getting ourselves in the points because dropping back has been a pattern this season.

“Today was a frustrating day, so you will not see me very cheerful, but when I wake up and I go to a factory in the morning, I will be smiling again and trying to put my energy to try and improve the situation and try and help the team to find the problems that we’re having, because it’s clear to me now that we’re having serious issues with developing this car, and we are not bringing the performance that we thought we were.”

Sainz highlighted the work the team has been doing behind the scenes to try and bring parts as quickly as possible, pointing out a new front wing at Silverstone had initially been slated for arrival at the Belgian Grand Prix next up.

However, after trialling it in FP1, that came with Williams looking to seek a further understanding of the new part, with only limited running due to a Sprint weekend taking place.

The 31-year-old pointed to the deficit the team faced at the Japanese Grand Prix compared to Silverstone, as evidence of just how far the team has to push still.

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“I don’t know if that, with this set of regulations, we’re not understanding the flow dynamics and the flow aerodynamics well, or what is happening,” Sainz theorised, “but my feeling is that at Suzuka, we were 1.6, 1.8 seconds [behind] with a very overweight car. Here, we’re two seconds off with a much better weight, and it means that something is not going into the car.

“There’s some load there missing somewhere. We need to go find why, and we need to be serious about finding the issues and create some bounceback from here.”

Williams currently sits eighth in the Constructors’ standings, on 11 points.

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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