Carlos Sainz on the old problems of the new Williams car

      It's surprising that with the transition to the new regulations, old problems have returned to Williams, which we had dreamed of getting rid of for several years...

      Carlos Sainz: "The issue of insufficient grip from the front inner wheel in corners has existed in our car since I first got behind the wheel of a Williams. There’s nothing new about this.

      Five years ago, one of our weak points was turns 9 and 10 in Bahrain – the double left turn we always talked about. This year, as the cars have less downforce, the problem has worsened. At times, it feels like the car is driving on three wheels.

      The front inner wheel isn’t hanging in the air, but if you look closely, you can see that it has a smaller contact patch than the other three tires. We are paying a lot of attention to this issue, spending a lot of time on it during practice to try to improve the situation.

      This characteristic of the car surprised me last year as well. I had to adapt to it, learn how to drive the car, and set it up – in 2025, we managed to improve and refine the car. But when the downforce decreased with the new regulations, the problem arose again. The team is doing everything possible to understand the cause and determine what in the car's design could be causing this phenomenon."