Carlos Sainz has conceded that he was “worried” before agreeing to renew his contract with Williams, due to wanting to ensure its current poor season is not replicated.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
After a remarkable opening campaign with Williams last season, which saw the Spaniard feature on the podium, 2026 has been a staggering wake-up call.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Williams missed the pre-season shakedown in Barcelona and had a significant weight issue, hurting the Grove-based outfit throughout the year so far.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It has left Sainz frustrated and disappointed, having expected so much better from the start of the new power unit regulations, leading to speculation that he could depart.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
However, ahead of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, it was confirmed by the British outfit that Sainz had signed a new multi-year deal, with him not wanting to leave at the first obstacle.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Asked if he needed convincing to renew his Williams deal, Sainz told select media, including RacingNews365: “No, because in a way, I think you guys know me by now. I don’t think it’s part of my character to jump ships when the situation is also at its worst.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“I think I told everyone also how committed I am to this project two years ago, how excited I was about it, and the first time there is a bump on the road, a big bump, probably bigger than anyone could have imagined after the podiums of last year.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“I don’t think it’s part of me, my way of being, my character to jump ships at the first possible opportunity. So I think, in the back of my head, I always wanted to renew, but I was obviously worried, concerned that we need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“And I obviously had to go back to everyone and understand where we are, where we’re planning to go, and how this has affected our plans.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Sainz has conceded that he was “worried” before agreeing to renew his contract with Williams, due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-875106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875106","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=875106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}