Williams release secret F1 2024 car data that convinced Carlos Sainz to sign

Williams team principal James Vowles has lifted the lid on how he convinced Carlos Sainz to join the team for F1 2025, giving the outgoing Ferrari driver access to secret F1 2024 car data.

After months of speculation, Williams last week confirmed the signing of Sainz on a two-year contract “with options to extend.”

Carlos Sainz convinced by Williams F1 2024 car weight data?

It represents a major coup for the Grove-based team – without a win since the 2012 season – with Williams beating Renault-owned Alpine and Audi, who will take over the existing Sauber team in 2026, to Sainz’s signature.

Sainz’s decision to join Williams comes despite the team currently sitting second bottom of the Constructors’ standings, having scored just four points across the first 14 races of the F1 2024 season.

Vowles has revealed that his determination to land Sainz extended to him providing the Spaniard with sensitive weight figures of their F1 2024 car, which started the season overweight.

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This, Vowles said, allowed Sainz to work out that Williams would have scored points at “pretty much every race” this season if the car had met weight targets at the start of the year, confirming the true potential of the FW46.

Asked how he managed to convince Sainz to join Williams, Vowles told the F1 Nation podcast: “I think it was a few things.

“I gave him quite accurate weight figures for where the car is overweight race by race, so he can go back and calculate from that where the car would have been.

“And for the world, it would have meant we were point scoring at pretty much every race, certainly at the beginning of the year.

“And that’s quite painful for me, but it’s also a sign of the performance added to the car.

“Weight is possible to remove and we are removing it. It’s very hard to add real tangible aerodynamic performance and weight is just a function.

“I’ve done it 100 times in my career – add 10 kilos, it’s about three tenths; take off 10 kilos, it’s about three tenths. There’s no point debating it, it does it every time. He knows that and he can see that.

“So first and foremost is he put [it all] together -and said]: ‘OK, this is where you are performance-wise’ – which allows him a clearer view of where the real performance is, of certain elements of things, and that’s very encouraging.”

Vowles also offered Sainz a glimpse of the level of investment Williams are prepared to commit to, in terms of infrastructure and personnel, to re-emerge as a leading force in F1.

In June, Williams announced the appointment of 32 new recruits, with Vowles revealing that more are on the way as the team target a major breakthrough when F1’s new rules are introduced in 2026.

He explained: “What I also showed him is what we’re investing in [for] the future in a lightweight way. I couldn’t give them the in-depth [version] of it.

“But [I told him] where we’re investing, how much we’re investing, why we’re doing that, what I believe in, how long it would take to come on board.

“He knew about all the people we’re signing – and, by the way, there’s still more that we haven’t announced at the moment – but I took him through all of that: what we’re doing, why we’re changing what we’re changing, why it will take the time it will take, why ’24 is more of a compromise.

“2025 is a compromise as well and that was a difficult position for him because he’s hyper-competitive and doesn’t want to be on the backfoot in ’25, but here’s why ’26 is quite exciting and this is what you have to look forward to.

“And here’s the real key behind it, and it’s worth asking him rather than me just telling you: the same message I gave him [when talks started] in Abu Dhabi last year is exactly the same message I gave him two weeks ago. Hasn’t changed.

“I’m incredibly straightforward. I will show you everything, warts and all, but that message doesn’t migrate depending on where we are. It will always be the same one.

“I think that aided him to gain confidence in who I am as an individual and what I stand for.”

Williams trail Sainz’s current employers Ferrari by 341 points in the Constructors’ Championship at the halfway stage of F1 2024.

While Vowles admits that it is “unlikely” that Williams will challenge the Scuderia in the years to come, the team are convinced that they “have a chance” of taking the fight to some of F1’s other big names.

He added: “Are we going to be Ferrari? It’s unlikely, unless I were to put a big number on the table.

“But can we beat others? I think we have a chance here. What it boiled down to is that’s why I really put the target on [Sainz].”

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