Carlos Sainz sounds alarm over Williams’ "concerning" British GP pace

Carlos Sainz delivered a blunt assessment of Williams’ British Grand Prix performance, describing the team’s lack of pace at Silverstone as both “concerning” and “frustrating” after another difficult weekend in the midfield fight.

Silverstone Upgrade Fails to Shift the Picture

There was at least a modest step in qualifying, with both Williams cars progressing to Q2 after recent struggles to escape Q1. But the race quickly exposed the underlying limitation. Sainz made a strong start and briefly moved into points contention, only to lose ground once the field settled into representative race pace. Alex Albon, meanwhile, retired.

“We did a really good start and had a very good lap one through good car positioning, and I was up to the points and I thought that from there the race was on,” Sainz said. “But as soon as we settled into our pace, we saw the Alpine and the Audis were just simply too quick for us, which has been the case all weekend, and we couldn’t hold them off.”

The frustration follows a wider British GP weekend in which Sainz’s result was also affected by a rare post-race penalty, as covered in our report on Carlos Sainz’s British Grand Prix lap penalty.

Sainz Questions Williams’ Development Return

The sharper concern for Sainz is not simply one poor race, but what he views as a pattern. Williams has removed weight from the car and brought upgrades, yet the expected lap time has not materialised on track.

“It starts to be a bad trend this year that we don’t seem to really find a lot of lap time when the upgrades are coming,” he said. “We need to have a good sit-down now this week and analyse what’s happening because, unfortunately, we’ve shed a lot of weight out of the car by now, but the gap to the front keeps increasing and the gap to the leader of the midfield keeps increasing.”

‘Not Happy’ but Ready to Work

Sainz was clear that his mood after Silverstone was far from positive, admitting he was “upset” and “worried” by Williams’ current direction.

“No one likes getting overtaken, especially after so many good starts that we’re doing this year and getting ourselves in the points multiple times and then dropping back,” he said.

Yet he also stressed that his response will be constructive. Sainz said he will return to the factory ready to help Williams identify why its development programme is not producing the performance it expected. For a race winner stuck in an uncompetitive car, patience is being tested — but the message is now unmistakable: Williams must understand its problems quickly.