Carlos Sainz ‘puzzled’ by lack of pace for Williams in ‘one of the strangest swings of performance in my career’

Carlos Sainz was left with more questions than answers as the former Ferrari man lagged behind his Williams team mate Alex Albon once again in the Chinese Grand Prix.

While Sainz did ultimately score his first points for Williams with P10 in Shanghai, the Spaniard originally finished 13th on the road before being promoted due to the post-race disqualifications of Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly.

Having started 15th, Sainz struggled to make inroads in the midfield and found himself overtaken by Ollie Bearman’s Haas late on. With his initial outings for his new team looking promising in terms of pace, the 30-year-old remains at a loss to explain why the pace has dropped.

“We got it right with the strategy, unfortunately the pace of the car was...we were just not there, struggling with the front tyres again,” Sainz said after Sunday's race.

SHANGHAI, CHINA - MARCH 23: Lance Stroll of Canada driving the (18) Aston Martin F1 Team AMR25 — Sainz struggled for pace in the midfield on Sunday

“A bit puzzled to be honest, not happy because ever since I jumped in this car I was very quick in testing so I don’t know where the pace has gone for this weekend. At least we have a good 10 days to analyse what went wrong and put together a plan to come back stronger in Japan.”

This is not the first time Sainz has swapped teams, having moved from Racing Bulls – then known as Toro Rosso – to Renault, to McLaren and then to Ferrari before landing at Williams for 2025. One thing he has always prided himself on is his ability to get straight up to speed, but that is currently not happening at the moment for the Spaniard.

“One of the strangest swings of performance I have had in my career, going from naturally super quick in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, even at the beginning of Australia and then suddenly the pace has just seemed to fall away from me,” he continued.

“We did a lot of set-up changes that on my side of the garage, what Alex and I did were pretty similar, on his side [the car] seemed to respond well to the front graining and he was a lot stronger today, on my side it didn’t seem to help much.”

Sainz ‘a bit puzzled’ by the lack of pace over the weekend

As Sainz noted, the set-up changes appeared to aid his team mate, with Albon opting for a long first stint on the medium compound, which even saw him lead the race briefly on his birthday.

After pitting late on for the hards, he was able to climb to ninth at the flag – which later became seventh following the disqualifications.

“Very happy,” he confirmed afterwards. “It was a strange race in many ways, as we were so comfortable on that first set, first stint – it kind of cornered us as the hard tyre out-performed everyone’s expectations so we probably stayed out a little bit too long.

“We were quick and we were catching the cars at the end of the race but the deg wasn’t big enough that I couldn’t make the difference really. We did catch up, but yeah, still very happy.”

SHANGHAI, CHINA - MARCH 23: Alexander Albon of Thailand driving the (23) Williams FW47 Mercedes and — Albon scored more points in China as he continues to impress

Albon’s points haul of 16 from the first two race weekends exceeds the 12 he managed from the entirety of last season, which points to the work Williams have done to create a more competitive car – and that was highlighted at a track he confirmed was not expected to suit the FW47.

“We have come to a track that is quite weak for our car historically and it still didn’t really suit us compared to Melbourne at least," he added. "But we still got points out of the weekend, which is really important.

“I’m also really happy with the team, the way we came from yesterday, really struggling with the front tyres… We changed the whole philosophy of the car and still had really good race pace, so that just shows we are understanding the car quite well.”

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