Carlos Sainz: “We are aware that our car has many weak points on a track like this. We should not expect miracles”

Carlos Sainz He won’t have it easy this weekend at the United States GP. The man from Madrid is aware of the weaknesses that the Williams on the Austin circuit where, in addition to power, good downforce is needed, something that is missing on the FW48.

During the first practice sessions Williams limited himself to collecting data to have a good base to work on and, in Free Practice 2, he was barely able to be 20th. Therefore, it is almost impossible to think about getting something positive from the Texan track.

“We decided to dedicate Free Practice 1, on a circuit where we knew we were going to be weak, to better understand the behavior of the car. The objective was to collect all possible information about the current car to apply it to next year’s car,” explained Sainz after finishing the first day of activity at COTA.

“We are aware that Our car has many weak points on a track like this; We want to analyze it in depth and define the parameters well to get the design right for next season. When you lack downforce you suffer both when braking and in fast corners… We know that this year the car lacks a lot of downforce. In situations like the ones here, with potholes, high speed, high temperatures or wind, The only thing that saves you is downforce, and that is precisely what we don’t have this year“.

Given what we saw in the first training sessions, even thinking about Q2 seems to be too optimistic. Carlos himself insisted that you don’t have to think about fishing in troubled rivers, you just have to focus on what you do.

“We are working on it and we are preparing for a difficult weekend; you don’t have to wait for miracles, but at least we are taking advantage to learn everything possible for next year,” he concluded.