Carlos Sainz Admits ‘Everything Has Gone Wrong’

Carlos Sainz has reflected on what has been a “tough” start to the season for himself and Williams, admitting that “everything that could go wrong this year so far has gone wrong for me.”

The Grove-based team currently sits fifth in the Teams’ Championship with 59 points, 18 points clear of sixth-placed Kick Sauber. However, 46 of those points have been scored by Alex Albon, as Sainz has endured a difficult run of weekends, failing to score since finishing P10 in Canada.

The 30-year-old was unable to start the Austrian Grand Prix due to a car issue, and contact with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari at Silverstone dropped him down the order, resulting in a P12 finish.

Asked during the British Grand Prix weekend what he had learned from the first half of the season, Sainz said: “Definitely we are going through a tough period with reliability issues, with weekend execution problems as you could see [in Austria], and the last few weekends I think have been extremely difficult for us as a team.

“For me on my side of the garage, running through multiple issues in Qualifying and the race, the one thing that keeps me hopeful and confident is that my speed has always been there throughout the year. So that’s something that we need to just bank on and make sure that we stop making these mistakes and making the kind of issues that are hampering us in important moments of the weekend.”

Reflecting further on his recent struggles, Sainz added: “I think everything that could go wrong this year so far has gone wrong for me, and it’s been a run of races where we’ve had highlights and some good moments, but in the majority of it it’s been very scrappy from every part involved.

“We’re keen to get this run of bad races to an end, because we’re making too many mistakes for the car that we have. The one thing that keeps me smiling is the speed that I have in the car and with the team, and I know we should be finishing every weekend as top of the midfield, except for maybe Barcelona and a few other places.

“The speed is there, I feel comfortable in the car, we just don’t seem to get a break in terms of luck and execution of the weekend [and] reliability.

“Just way too many issues for the car we have, but at some point it’s going to end and as soon as I get a bit of momentum going I know what we’re capable of doing.”

Sainz will be hoping for a turnaround when Formula 1 heads to Belgium for the next race weekend on July 25-27.