Carlos Sainz: Miami-spec Williams is the F1 car we should’ve had from opening race

Carlos Sainz described Williams’ Miami upgrade as “the car that was supposed to come to Race 1” and lays out the timeline he expects for the team to complete its recovery.

The Spaniard took ninth place in the Miami Grand Prix and led home team-mate Alex Albon for a double-points finish for Williams – its first of the season, which enabled it to pull clear of Audi into eighth place in the early F1 world constructors’ standings.

Sainz was satisfied with the impact of the upgrade package Williams delivered in Miami, which was primarily focused on shedding the excess weight that the car came into the season with, following delays to its car build which stalled its pre-season preparations.

“We finally put on the upgrade of the car that was supposed to come to Race 1,” Sainz explained. “Because of all the delays we had at the beginning of the season, now we finally put the car that was supposed to be the Race 1 package. Now it's in the car, it's performing at least at the level of the midfield cars.

“We know we still have a lot of weight to shed off the car. When you look at that, it's positive. I think the team has done a great effort over the last few weeks to bring this.

“It shows that when you do things right, things start to come away a bit better. Clearly, this weekend we were sixth fastest. But then Alpine is a good 20 seconds in front of us today.

Pierre Gasly, Alpine, Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

“It would have been 25-30s without a safety car. To Alpine there's still a big gap and to the frontrunners, I can't even tell you [how big]. We need to put our heads down and make this the new baseline and start improving.”

Despite the breakthrough, Sainz wants Williams to use it as motivation to continue its development push to aid its recovery after a difficult start to the new F1 regulations era.

“Not where we want to be. I expect everyone at home to know this is still not where we want to be,” he said. “Even if it feels for everyone a bit of a relief. 

“Getting two cars in the points on merit is definitely a good step. But we need to keep pushing because it's still not where we expected to be at the end of last year when we were hoping for 2026. Hopefully the start of a new recovery and hopefully by the end of the year we get where we want to be.”

Sainz also said the recovery programme will continue over the first two-thirds of this season and doesn’t expect Williams to have fully solved its issues until the end of the European leg of the campaign in mid-September.

“It's going to take some months to finish the turnaround,” he explained. “I think we're going to need to get to the last third of the season to see a proper turnaround. 

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Chris Graythen / Getty Images

“But at least the upgrade worked. The weight of the car came a bit off but we still know there's a bit to go. We have a few bits and pieces coming for the next couple of races. We're going to keep the positives and make sure we keep focusing [to solve] on the negatives.”

After the opening four rounds, Williams trail midfield leader Alpine by 18 points, with the French squad in fifth place, while Haas hold sixth, 13 points in front, and Racing Bulls is in seventh, nine points ahead of Williams.