Racing
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Carlos Sainz has proposed a sweeping overhaul of Formula 1 in which every driver would rotate through every car on the grid, arguing that only then would the series produce a genuinely fair world champion.
Speaking to Spanish publication Mundo Deportivo, the Williams driver said each competitor should race two weekends in every team’s car across a 20-race season. In his vision, drivers would no longer belong to a single constructor but instead become part of Formula 1 itself.
“I’ve always imagined a Formula 1 where the manufacturers and the drivers are separate,” Sainz said. He then set out the format: “a series where you have 20 races and each driver races two races in each car,” meaning “two for Williams, two for Mercedes, two for Ferrari and so on.”
The idea is aimed at removing the advantage of machinery from the drivers’ title fight. Sainz said the driver would be “an F1 client hired by Formula 1 to drive the cars,” so that every competitor would have “exactly the same chance of winning the World Championship.”
He said points scored in each appearance would still count for the team involved, preserving the constructors’ battle while separating it from the drivers’ standings. “That way, you’d completely separate the teams from the drivers. And so you’d have a proper Drivers’ Championship and a proper Constructors’ Championship,” Sainz said.
The proposal reflects Sainz’s view that modern Formula 1 results are shaped as much by the car as by the driver. In comments reported from the same interview, he argued that championships and wins depend heavily on the machinery available, which is why he sees a rotating system as the only route to a “true” drivers’ championship.
Sainz also accepted that the concept is effectively impossible in the current sport. He described it as a “slightly crazy” idea and said it would “never” happen, given Formula 1’s entrenched team identities and commercial structure.
His comments came while he is racing for Williams in 2026, with six points leaving him 14th in the drivers’ championship and the team eighth in the constructors’ standings on 11. Those figures underline the point behind his argument: in Sainz’s view, equal access to every car is the only way to decide the title on driving alone.