How Carlos Sainz’s Madrid home race ended up in frustration

Carlos Sainz arrived at Madrid with hopes that improved Williams form, combined with the possibility of attrition ahead, could produce a strong result in his home race. Instead, the new circuit exposed the limitations of the FW48 from the opening practice session, in its final outing before Williams introduces its Baku upgrade package.

The weekend unravelled in qualifying. Sainz and Alex Albon were separated by just 0.005 seconds in Q1, with Albon edging ahead as the pair took P16 and P17. The closeness suggested both drivers had extracted almost everything available from the car. Sainz then received a three-place grid penalty for impeding Valtteri Bottas, dropping him to P20 behind the two Cadillacs.

With overtaking expected to be difficult, Sainz attacked immediately. Starting on the hard tyre, he gained three or four positions off the line but was caught out by the congestion at Turn 1 and made contact with Yuki Tsunoda’s Racing Bull. The impact damaged the floor and removed the performance needed to recover.

“Unfortunately from there on, I had damage in the car, and it was a race of survival, because I had no rear downforce in the car for the rest of the race,” Sainz said.

Contact with Alonso adds to difficult afternoon

Sainz later became involved in another incident at Turn 5, this time with Fernando Alonso. Alonso damaged his front wing and argued that he had been squeezed, while Sainz maintained that the corner left room for only one car.

“It’s the nature of that corner when you turn right, and I think he complained on the radio, so he managed to get me a penalty, like always,” Sainz said. He accepted a five-second penalty at his pit stop but insisted the incident was shaped by the corner’s limited space and the need to concentrate on the racing line.

The floor damage ultimately made continuing pointless. Sainz was circulating around one second off the pace and Williams retired the car after 43 laps.

“The moment you lose a piece of the floor, it’s game over,” he explained, adding that even a perfect race would probably have produced no better than 16th.

The crowd remained a positive. Sainz thanked the Madrid fans for their overwhelming support and said he was already looking forward to returning, hoping future home races will involve a fight for more than P15 or P16. The result also underlines the importance of Williams’ next step; the team’s planned B-spec car is expected to make a “huge step” in Baku.

Albon finished in the better of the two Williams positions but endured a similarly difficult race. He described the weekend as one of his stronger efforts, yet said the car lacked the pace and load to keep the harder tyres alive, leaving them vulnerable to cooling once the tread wore away.