Carlos Sainz at Williams: Why He Is Being Wasted Despite Strong F1 Form

Carlos Sainz has endured one of the strangest seasons of his Formula 1 career at Williams. The Spaniard has produced performances worthy of far better machinery, yet six points and a string of ninth-place finishes tell a very different story.

Sainz has now committed his future to Williams with a new multi-year contract, despite the team's dramatic decline from the competitiveness it showed in 2025. On paper, staying with a car that has become one of the slowest on the grid is difficult to justify for a 31-year-old driver who was winning races with Ferrari less than two years ago.

But there is another way to look at it.

Sainz is not being held back because his level has dropped. If anything, his 2026 campaign has offered more evidence of his quality. The problem is that Williams has given him very little machinery with which to demonstrate it.

Carlos Sainz's results do not tell the full story

The most obvious criticism of Sainz's season is the points column.

He has scored just six points, with three ninth-place finishes representing his best results of the campaign. That is the worst run of results of his F1 career.

Yet judging Sainz purely by those numbers ignores the context in which they have been achieved.

Williams' FW48 has been among the slowest cars on the grid. By average pace, it was the third-slowest machine before the summer break, ahead of only Cadillac at the Hungaroring after Aston Martin's major aerodynamic upgrade.

Sainz, meanwhile, has reached Q2 in 10 of the first 15 qualifying sessions and has been beaten by team-mate Alex Albon only twice, with both defeats coming by margins of just thousandths of a second.

That is not the profile of a driver struggling for form.

It is the profile of a driver extracting almost everything available from an underperforming car.

Sainz himself acknowledged the contradiction when assessing his campaign.

"I hate thinking like that because I'm P16," he said. "It's a very 'relative' sport."

Yet once the car and driver are separated, Sainz believes this has been one of his most complete seasons.

That assessment is difficult to dismiss.

Carlos Sainz is still fighting like a driver with something to prove

The irony of Sainz's difficult season is that his determination to maximise every opportunity may also have contributed to his most high-profile mistake.

At the Hungarian Grand Prix, Sainz collided with race leader Oscar Piastri while being lapped. Piastri later criticised the Williams driver for "fighting Fernando [Alonso] for last place like it was the world championship".

The criticism was understandable.

But it also underlined the mentality that has made Sainz so effective this year.

There is little reward for fighting over 15th or 16th place in a Williams. Sainz, however, has approached those battles as though every position matters - because, for his career, it does.

At 31, he cannot afford to disappear into the midfield.

His performances in an uncompetitive Williams still shape how the rest of the paddock views him, particularly when future opportunities eventually emerge.

That is why his willingness to fight for seemingly insignificant positions matters.

In China, for example, Sainz kept Franco Colapinto's Alpine behind him on his way to ninth despite the significant difference in machinery.

Those are the moments that demonstrate the value of the driver even when the results column fails to do so.

The new regulations have brought out Sainz's strengths

There is another reason Sainz's performances deserve more attention.

The 2026 regulations have produced cars that suit his natural driving style better than the previous generation of ground-effect machinery.

Sainz has explained that he never felt completely comfortable driving the previous cars naturally. He had to modify his technique and remain disciplined to extract performance from them.

This year, he decided to approach the new regulations differently.

He effectively started again.

Rather than forcing himself to adapt his driving style around the characteristics of the previous generation, Sainz returned to what he describes as his natural approach and allowed the new car to dictate the finer adjustments.

That appears to have worked.

The Spaniard has described himself as an instinctive driver. Much of the detailed work happens away from the car, alongside his engineers, particularly around energy management, tyre preparation and set-up.

Once he gets behind the wheel, however, he prefers to rely on instinct.

That approach has helped him extract performance from the FW48, particularly over a single lap.

Sainz has often managed to take a car with Q1-level pace into Q2, creating results that are considerably better than Williams' underlying competitiveness would suggest.

Why staying at Williams actually makes sense for Carlos Sainz

That makes Sainz's decision to sign a new multi-year contract more understandable.

There were obvious reasons to leave.

Williams has fallen sharply from the level it reached last season, when Sainz scored two podiums. The team's 2026 campaign has been hampered by production delays, a missed first test and an overweight car, while its on-track performance has fallen well short of expectations.

But where would Sainz realistically go?

The most obvious alternative was Audi, yet Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg are already contracted. Aston Martin could have become an option if Fernando Alonso departed, but Sainz's new Williams deal also comes against the backdrop of Alonso's continued commitment to the green team.

Alpine has its own driver situation to manage.

That leaves Sainz with a difficult choice: start again elsewhere or continue building something he has already invested in.

He has now spent a year and a half working with James Vowles' Williams project. He knows the engineers, understands the organisation and has already established a working relationship with the team.

Walking away would mean beginning that process all over again.

And Williams does not regard the FW48 as the final destination.

The team is already looking towards the 2027 car after failing to deliver the progress expected from this year's machine.

For Sainz, that could make staying a calculated gamble rather than an act of loyalty alone.

Williams needs Sainz as much as Carlos Sainz needs Williams

The contract extension also makes sense from Williams' perspective.

The team is rebuilding after years of underinvestment and needs experienced drivers capable of contributing beyond simply collecting points.

Sainz brings experience from McLaren and Ferrari, as well as race-winning experience and a detailed understanding of what a front-running operation requires.

His technical feedback and ability to extract performance from difficult machinery are particularly valuable to a team attempting to rebuild its infrastructure and development process.

Williams has also secured continuity by extending Alex Albon's contract into 2027.

That gives the team an unchanged driver pairing for next season, combining Albon's long-term knowledge of the organisation with Sainz's experience of competing at the front.

Between them, they offer Williams more than just two drivers.

They provide a benchmark for the team as it attempts to understand where its development process is falling short.

The real test comes in 2027

That is ultimately why Sainz's decision should not be judged solely on the disappointment of 2026.

He is clearly being wasted by the current level of the Williams car.

A driver who has finished fifth in independent performance rankings across the season, despite driving one of the slowest cars on the grid, is producing evidence that his ability has not disappeared.

The problem is that Formula 1 offers very little visibility to drivers operating at the back.

A brilliant qualifying lap that takes a Williams from 16th to 14th rarely generates headlines. A defensive drive that secures 15th is easily forgotten. A driver fighting desperately for a position while being lapped can, unfortunately, become news for all the wrong reasons.

Sainz's task is therefore twofold: continue extracting everything from Williams while waiting for the team to give him a car capable of turning that performance into results.

His new contract allows him to do exactly that.

Williams has committed to Sainz and Albon. Sainz has committed to the project. The team's next major opportunity comes with the 2027 car.

If Williams gets that development right, Sainz's decision to stay could look very different.

For now, though, the uncomfortable truth remains: Carlos Sainz is producing far more than his Williams results suggest, and Formula 1 is barely noticing