{"id":3596,"date":"2025-07-18T16:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3596\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T16:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:39:08","slug":"guenther-steiner-questions-carlos-sainzs-williams-call-as-sauber-surge-in-f1-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3596\/","title":{"rendered":"Guenther Steiner questions Carlos Sainz\u2019s Williams call as Sauber surge in F1 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Former Haas boss Guenther Steiner has suggested Carlos Sainz will now regret choosing Williams over Sauber amid the latter\u2019s resurgence in F1 2025.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Sainz was a key player in the driver market last year after losing his Ferrari seat to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/9\/lewis-hamilton\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lewis Hamilton<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Spaniard had to choose between Williams or Sauber, with Alpine in the frame.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Sainz opted for Williams, buoyed by their progress under team boss James Vowles.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Many expect Sainz to join Sauber, given that they will become Audi in 2026.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, Sauber slumped to last in the constructors\u2019 standings last year, scoring points in just one race.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While Williams sit ahead of Sauber in the current standings, the Swiss-based team scored their first podium since 2012 at Silverstone with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/10\/nico-h-lkenberg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nico Hulkenberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Under Jonathan Wheatley\u2019s leadership, Sauber has been transformed operationally and are performing like a credible midfield outfit.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Steiner thinks that Sainz will regret not signing for Sauber\/Audi.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cGas [which means yes],\u201d he said on the The Red Flags Podcast. \u201cBut, not only because of the performance, [but] also because he was driving at Ferrari when Mattia [Binotto] was there.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAnd I think he, in general, is not having a good experience in the moment at Williams.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI mean, he\u2019s struggling a lot, and Carlos is a very good driver.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSo they had a very good beginning of the year, but mainly with Albon and not with Carlos. Carlos never had any really good results.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSo, obviously, a little bit of frustration will have set in. And thinking back, I said, I should have gone with Audi. But hey, you make the decision, you live by your choices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sainz overlooked by Mercedes<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Sainz was forced to drop down the grid after Mercedes and Red Bull overlooked him.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Mercedes considered him as a possible Lewis Hamilton replacement before giving academy prospect Kimi Antonelli a chance.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Speaking on The High Performance podcast, Sainz shed light on his talks with Mercedes.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cNot really. We spoke a lot with Toto and everyone else at the time and I was certainly one of the options that was considered. But how close was I? You can ask Toto that.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cBut I think he is very happy with Kimi Antonelli.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Haas boss Guenther Steiner has suggested Carlos Sainz will now regret choosing Williams over Sauber amid the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,5243,806,805,803,804,924,85,819],"class_list":["post-3596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carlos-sainz-jr","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sauber","tag-sports","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596","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=3596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}