Carlos Sainz warns of a problem at Williams: “There are still ghosts of the past”
Weeks ago, Carlos Sainz warned that the team must now focus on creating the 2027 car, a year in which he hopes Williams will not make the same mistakes as this year, in which Carlos encountered the perfect storm from the beginning: a car that arrived late, overweight and lacking aerodynamic load. Everything that one does not want. But to this we must add another question that Sainz put on the table this weekend.
It’s about quality control of the parts that the Williams team creates. On Friday, it was striking that the Spaniard said that he had had to put a not-so-good floor on his car due to the damage he had suffered to that element in Free Practice 1 when he went off the track. And he clarified it before the Spanish press present at the circuit, among them MD.
After finishing 17th in the F1 Dutch GP classification with a good final lap that allowed him to place himself 22 thousandths behind the cut-off time that gave access to Q2, the Madrid native highlighted that it is not that Williams does not have spare parts and that this Saturday he had to assemble old specification parts. No. It had spare parts, the same specifications, but, for a reason unknown, each spare part has a different performance.
Carlos made it clear that we must focus on this problem and resolve it by 2027.
What we have to learn as a team is how there is so much variability between parts of the car, that we don’t understand why.
“The truth is that it has been a very difficult weekend so far, finally in qualifying we have been able to put a couple of things that have worked as the car should have done all weekend, but it has been too late by the time I have put them in, since only one Q1 to get the car ready and we had already made too many setup changes for a car that was not what it should be,” he commented.
“I did a very good lap until the last sector, which I lost a little in the chicane and then I lost a tenth of battery in the last straight, which was difficult for me not to go to Q2, but it was already the car that I have driven all year and at least, we have managed to find it, but we have to find the why and what we have to learn as a team is how there is so much variability between parts of the car that we do not understand why,” he added.
“The control of quality and production parts is one of our biggest weaknesses as a team and in general and this is where we have to improve the most next year, I would tell you, more than the weight thing is in the quality control of the parts, that there are still ghosts of the past in the team that must be eliminated, because it is clear that it costs us a lot this weekend, like today. “Things like this weekend cannot be repeated next year.”he pointed out, giving Williams homework.
The control of quality and production parts is one of our biggest weaknesses as a team and in general, it is where we have to improve the most in 2027
“The floor that was damaged yesterday, that specification, can you have it again in Italy and Madrid?” he was asked.
“I don’t think, honestly, it was damaged a lot, I think it happened to Antonelli too, to Verstappen, he records it here for whatever reason, it destroys the floors. Spare parts? Yes, we have, we have many of those versions, what happens is that each floor does a little what it wants,” he commented. It is not a spare parts problembut each piece acts differently from another that should perform exactly the same.
Yes, we have more floors like that, we have many of those versions, what happens is that each floor does a little bit of what it wants.
Surprise that Aston Martin is behind
“I don’t understand why… I go so fast, much faster than us in the corners, in the race and in qualifying, but I don’t know if the quali engine map they have or the SLM (rear wing straight mode) works for them or not, but it’s strange, they go so fast that I don’t understand how we are ahead.”
Possibilities in the race?
“Let’s see, sincerely we are fighting for 17th, 16th, 15th, if we want to score points it has to rain and be messy on a monumental morning, so as a team we are dedicating ourselves to learning, to investing, to trying things that will improve us next year, because really, for me to fight for 15th, 16th, it’s just not… when you have been fighting for victories in F1 it is so worthless that you prefer to invest in the future.”
Or bet on a crazy strategy?
“No, especially because last year I would say yes, because we were one or two tenths away from the top-10, but this year we are one second away from the top-10, so even if you make a crazy strategy they will overtake you, we have more distance to the RBs than we had last year to the McLaren, so it is very difficult to think about a top-10 when we know that the car lacks so much.”
