Carlos Sainz: Missing Barcelona shakedown “frustrating” but Williams confidence unchanged

Carlos Sainz admitted it was frustrating for Williams to miss the Barcelona shakedown but insisted his confidence in the team remains intact as it works to catch up during Bahrain testing

Carlos Sainz has insisted that while it was frustrating to miss the Barcelona shakedown, he has not lost any confidence in Williams.

Williams decided to skip the private testing at Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya, "following delays in the FW48 programme."

"Yeah, frustrating. Obviously, I'm not going to hide away from the fact that I would have loved to be in Barcelona to get those three days, get the head start," Sainz told the media in Bahrain.

"And yeah, it was always going to be the plan, but unfortunately during the winter we faced some issues, some bumps in the road that we didn't expect as a team. And we had to readapt our plan and do the best we could with what we had, and to turn up then to Bahrain and had a smooth day like yesterday.

"At least since the message back that we did it for a reason and that now we are running smoothly and trying to catch up with the others."

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

When asked if his confidence had been damaged due to the delays that the team has faced, the Spanish driver added: "I wouldn't say the confidence is damaged. I think it's more a realisation that there's still multiple areas where even if we were podium finishers last year, P5 in the championship, we're still not at the level of where we want to be in terms of comparing ourselves with top teams and the way they execute their winters, their preparations, their change of set of regulations.

"We know there's a massive margin of improvement in many, many areas and yet when I came to Williams I knew this was going to be the case and I'm here for trying to help in every area."

The Grove outfit is now in Bahrain for the first week of pre-season testing and they will have one more three-day block next week before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix from 6-8 March.