{"id":143031,"date":"2025-09-14T17:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T17:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/143031\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T17:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T17:22:07","slug":"exclusive-how-williams-f1-rebuild-has-become-a-life-project-for-carlos-sainz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/143031\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: How Williams F1 rebuild has become a ‘life project’ for Carlos Sainz"},"content":{"rendered":"

C<\/a>arlos Sainz<\/a> has expressed that his innate desire to restore Williams to the pinnacle in Formula 1<\/a> is so strong that he views his venture with the team as his \u201clife project\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sainz\u2019s move to Williams has seen his name be etched onto an esteemed and exclusive list as he\u2019s now only the third driver to have driven for F1\u2019s three most successful sides.<\/p>\n

Like Sainz, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost had stints with McLaren and Ferrari prior to a switch to Williams, where both men ended up securing the ultimate prize with title successes in 1992 and 1993, respectively.<\/p>\n

However, unlike his predecessors, Sainz has arrived at Williams at a time when the team isn\u2019t regarded as a leading contender. The Grove-based squad has not been crowned champions since 1997 and has not taken a race win since the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

But with James Vowles at the helm, Williams is undergoing an extensive rebuild that the Briton is hoping will culminate in the team recapturing its former glories down the line. Sainz has brought into Vowles\u2019 vision, and an immediate move down the pecking order has not diminished his ambition to succeed. Instead, the Madrid-born racer has vowed that he is now even more motivated as he endeavours to emulate Mansell and Prost.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing would make me happier in my life than going into a project as young as Williams is and making it to the top with them,\u201d Sainz told\u00a0Motorsport Week\u00a0in an exclusive interview. \u201cI think that\u2019s the\u00a0best story an athlete can do, is build a family and win with that family of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel Williams is a good place; it\u2019s already showing a lot of progress compared to last year in that sense. And yeah, nothing motivates me more than bringing back one of the most historical teams in Formula 1 back to winning ways. I\u00a0always say to James it\u2019s my life project\u00a0now, it\u2019s what I want to make happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CarlosCarlos Sainz is eager to help Williams return to the top<\/p>\n

Sainz not getting caught up in Williams\u2019 long-term plans<\/p>\n

Williams has hedged its bets on the upcoming rules overhaul assisting its quest to reduce the gap to those ahead, with even the team\u2019s strongest start to a campaign since 2017 not enough to entice it to invest more resources in improving the current car.<\/p>\n

But although Vowles and Alex Albon have earmarked 2028 as the date when Williams is aiming to have a race-winning package, Sainz has emphasised that his attention is on ensuring the team is well-placed to capitalise if that moment comes to pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prefer to think more short-term and cover the steps more every six months,\u201d he explained. \u201cI like thinking in one six months by six months. Now we\u2019re defining next year\u2019s car, and we have also six months ahead of us where we need to improve the race team, weekend execution to make sure that by any chance next year\u2019s car is allowing us to fight for bigger things than this year\u2019s car, we are not making the mistakes that we\u2019re doing this year in weekend execution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my focus is always six months ahead more or less in F1, because that\u2019s where the driver can have an influence. It\u2019s on the next six months of the project you can develop things on the simulator for six months\u2019 time, you can develop the race team strategy, weekend execution in six months\u2019 time. So I always have a very six-month vision of where we want to be in six months and that\u2019s where I try to have the most influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, Sainz is reluctant to place an expectation on what Williams can accomplish with a clean slate next season until he discovers how competitive the car at his and team-mate Albon\u2019s disposal will be.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, my target is also I think like always to judge how well Williams has done in that development process and which car do we have for the beginning of the season. Then you set your targets depending on the car that we see in the first race. Like we did this year in Australia,\u201d he elaborated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s too early to know whether we will be outdeveloped or we will come up with a good car. Regulations are so different and so completely nothing to do with this year that we don\u2019t know who\u2019s gonna be outdeveloped in one year\u2019s time or not. It\u2019s too far away and what I\u2019m worrying about now is what I can [do to] help [Mercedes] HPP in the simulator to give us a better software for next year\u2019s car. What I can do to develop this team execution-wise, race weekend execution-wise in the short term because that\u2019s what\u2019s gonna pay back in six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Exclusive: Carlos Sainz reveals \u2018important piece of the puzzle\u2019 that attracted him to Williams<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Sainz has expressed that his innate desire to restore Williams to the pinnacle in Formula 1 is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,47054,85,819],"class_list":{"0":"post-143031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sainz","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}