Racing
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Carlos Sainz has put any decision on his Formula 1 future on hold until the summer break, saying his full focus is on helping Williams understand why its 2026 campaign has fallen so far short of expectations.
Speaking ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, the Williams driver said he has asked his management team to keep driver-market talk away from him for now because the workload inside the team is too heavy to allow room for anything else. “Not really. I’m not. Seriously, I’m not, because I have so much work to do here in Williams right now,” Sainz said. He added that he had told his side to “leave me a bit on my own until the summer break” so he could “help Williams and improve the situation as much as possible,” with summer the point when it will “be the time to think about it, look at the options.”
That does not mean Sainz has shifted away from Williams as his preferred outcome. He said the team already knows his “intentions” and “priorities,” which are “to continue in this team, in this project.” He also described his “ideal plan and my order of priorities” as “to stay and to continue in the long term.”
The uncertainty comes from how sharply Williams has struggled under the new 2026 regulations. After finishing 2025 with two podiums and securing fifth in the constructors’ championship, the team had expected at least to remain around that level, especially with the wind-tunnel time available to it. Instead, Williams has managed only 11 points so far in 2026.
Sainz said the problem runs deeper than simple performance fluctuation. In his view, the new rules have exposed weaknesses that had been masked before. “I’m trying to go deep into the root of the causes together with JV [James Vowles], all the management and everyone involved to see where things started to go wrong,” he said. Williams, he added, has already “analysed and concluded” where that slide began.
The bigger question now is whether the team can turn that diagnosis into a meaningful recovery quickly enough. Sainz said the focus has shifted to “what do we do moving forward,” “how quick are those changes going to start paying off,” and “how diligent and how aggressive we are” in responding. He said the process has become so consuming that “it really leaves very little opportunity or very little brain space and time to think about any other thing.”
He also made clear that money is not the central issue. Sainz said Williams has budget, board backing and significant investment in facilities, but argued that the real gains now depend on processes, efficiency and working methods. He said the team must get those areas right and strengthen itself by bringing in talent from elsewhere to understand where it is still not strong enough.
That explains why Sainz is waiting. Williams’ rebuild now looks like a multi-season job rather than a quick reset, and the Spaniard wants more clarity on how the response is unfolding before making a final call. For now, he is publicly maintaining that his priority is to stay, even as paddock reports continue to link him with Audi for 2027.
The summer break is set to become the point at which Sainz decides whether Williams’ long-term vision still justifies patience, or whether he needs a faster route back toward the front of the grid.