CARLOS SAINZ

Sainz: “Abu Dhabi is a Lando track”

Carlos Sainz on the title fight, Lando Norris’ strengths and Williams’ progress

Carlos Sainz shared his thoughts on the championship battle during media day at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Spaniard spent two seasons at McLaren as Lando Norris’ teammate — and now sees the Brit as one of the strongest title contenders.

"I wish Lando the best possible outcome." Carlos Sainz

I have a lot of respect for Max and Oscar too, but I think Abu Dhabi is a Lando track. He dominated here last year — and I know from experience that this circuit suits him. Still, finishing on the podium on a final weekend is never easy. But the way

he’s handled pressure recently shows he can do it.”

Experts also point to Norris as the main favorite for his first career title.

After Zandvoort, he produced an impressive comeback: a dominant

win in Mexico by over 30 seconds, a double victory in sprint and main race in Brazil, and a strong showing in Las Vegas before McLaren’s disqualification. Qatar could have been decisive, but Norris finished fourth.

He has raced in Formula 1 since 2019 and spent his entire career with McLaren. Over the years, Sainz says in what aspects the Brit has grown:

“Lando always had unbelievable skill to drive — especially in qualifying. I’ve been teammates with Charles, Max, Lando. I think his [Lando] speed is a quick as anyone, quicker even than anyone on his good day. What he’s really developed is consistency. Now he’s strong everywhere.”

Sainz is now in his first season with Williams after Ferrari signed Lewis Hamilton. The start of the year was difficult — including retirements in Australia and Bahrain — but the second half of the season has been a major turnaround. Podiums in Baku and Qatar, along with a strong Las Vegas result, marked clear progress:

“I tried to control my expectations before the season. But if you told me back in August when I signed that we’d score a couple of podiums and show this upward trend, I would have definitely taken it. Credit to Williams — the car was already a big step forward from the first test. We only brought one small upgrade, but development through setup understanding and teamwork with Alex has gone in the right direction.

“Mostly through setup development during the season. From Bahrain to now, we tried many things, explored different ideas and learned what works

and what doesn’t. We made mistakes early on, but that’s a consequence of Formula 1 not having testing and you need to use race weekend to test.”

With Williams running very few upgrades, Sainz also explained the pros and cons of

such stability:

“One of the advantages of not having too many evolution packages is that the car

remains stable through the year, so you don 't have big aero balance or downforce shapes, differences that might affect the mechanical side of things, which is in a year like this let's say a small positive,

"There has been a lot of development in how the drivers have worked, how the team has worked.“ Carlos Sainz

but at the same time the only thing that makes the car clearly quicker is downforce, so as a driver you also want more downforce and I hope next year we get plenty of good downforce packages, because next year everyone is going to need them.”

Looking further ahead, Sainz admitted he is eager to play a bigger role in shaping the future Williams project.

“First of all, I cannot wait to have an influence on the design of the car and the setup philosophy, and the direction that the car can take into next year to make

the drivers feel a bit more comfortable or a bit more at ease from the get-go, from the baseline of the car that we put on track. I think we can do steps forward already on that side, but By Williams F1

"There has been a lot of development in how the drivers have worked, how the team has worked.“ Carlos Sainz

think once the season starts, the drivers are going to have more of an influence on software development with HPP, in this case Mercedes. I think the power unit is going to be a huge thing and I think having two experienced drivers like Alex and I, I think in that sense could help.”

He also remained realistic about long-term expectations:

“The new set of regulations is such a reset for everyone, for all the engineers, for myself, that I don't feel any more confident about it because we could do it really well and put together a very good car for next year, but at the same time, very quickly, you can get it wrong and you need to reset and find the right way that maybe another team has found a loophole or a direction that you never thought

would be possible. That's why for next year, I think we need to stay super focused and calm about our expectations.”

Abu Dhabi is going to decide the championship this weekend, but for Sainz it also closes the first chapter of his Williams story — Sainz holds 9th place in the Drivers' Standings with 64 points. ❙❘