Carlos Sainz has had a better year at Williams following his unexpected exit from Ferrari is primarily linked to his long-term prospects and the major regulatory changes coming to Formula 1 in the 2026 season. While Williams had a solid 2025 season, securing their highest Constructors' Championship finish since 2016 (P5) and Sainz contributed with podium finishes, the real benefit of the move lies in the future.
Williams has a long-standing partnership with Mercedes, which is widely anticipated to have one of the strongest Power Units for the new 2026 regulations. The new PU rules place a much greater emphasis on electrical energy recovery and deployment, and Mercedes is a proven leader in this area.
Under Team Principal James Vowles, Williams made an early, aggressive decision to sacrifice most of their 2025 car development to focus all resources on the 2026 challenger. This long-term strategy gives them a potential development advantage over teams that were tied up in the closer 2025 championship fight. This reset creates an opportunity for teams to leapfrog their rivals, which is the cornerstone of Sainz's strategy.
Full support
Williams secured P5 in the 2025 World Constructors' Championship, their best finish since 2016. This is a massive leap from P9 in the previous season. The team's point haul of 137 points (with one race remaining) is the highest since 2017. Sainz delivered two Grand Prix podium finishes (in Baku and Qatar), making him the first Williams driver with multiple Grand Prix podiums in a single season since 2015. Sainz set the fastest overall lap time during the 2025 pre-season testing in Bahrain.
While testing times are not fully representative, topping the time sheets in the new Williams FW47 immediately signaled the car's improved raw speed and its potential to be a strong midfield contender. By taking a team that finished P9 and helping them jump to P5, with podiums, he has powerfully demonstrated his own value as a top-tier driver and a team leader, completely controlling his narrative. At Williams, Sainz is the undisputed number-one driver and the technical benchmark. He gets the full support and focus of James Vowles and the engineering staff.
Ferrari's failures
The four years at Ferrari were his peak years of absolute F1 performance because he had a race-winning car, 4 Grand Prix victories and consistently in the top half of the Drivers' Championship but team did not see it. Ferrari's before onboarding Sainz was in a deep slump, finishing a dismal 6th in the Constructors' Championship in 2020. While the racer helped uplift the team significantly from this low to P3 in 2021 and Sainz even outscored Leclerc in his first year.
Despite this objective uplift, the team's internal structure and public narrative were consistently built around Leclerc as the future champion. Sainz was often seen as the highly competent second driver brought in to help the team, but not necessarily to lead it. For a driver of Carlos' caliber, a seat is only productive if it gives him a genuine, long-term, equal chance at the World Championship. Ferrari never offered that, culminating in the team signing Lewis Hamilton to replace him, unequivocally ending any chance of future wins.
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