Sainz warned Red Bull could be worse than Williams

Riccardo Patrese has warned Carlos Sainz that leaving Williams for a possible Red Bull opening may not be an upgrade at all, saying Red Bull is “losing all the key people” and could end up “maybe even worse than Williams.”

The former six-time Grand Prix winner said Sainz’s route back to the front is far less straightforward than it might appear if Max Verstappen’s future creates movement at Red Bull. Speaking in remarks cited by betting outlets including BettingLounge, Patrese argued that most of the obvious destinations are effectively closed. “It’s difficult to think he could go back to Ferrari, it’s difficult for him to get a place in McLaren because they have two good drivers, Mercedes is a non-starter,” he said. “So, to leave a team like Williams would not make sense.”

That makes Red Bull more of a theoretical opportunity than a clear solution. Patrese said Sainz “maybe could go to Red Bull,” but attached a blunt caveat to that scenario. “They’re losing all the key people, at the end they are going to be maybe even worse than Williams,” he said. “It is not an easy position for him at the moment.”

The warning lands at a difficult time for Williams. Under Formula 1’s new regulations, the team has managed only one top-10 finish in the opening three Grands Prix, sits ninth in the Constructors’ Championship on two points, and has seen Sainz score its only points so far with ninth place in China.

That is a sharp contrast with 2025, when Sainz helped lift Williams to a much stronger level. Patrese said that “at the end of last year, he was brilliant” and that he “brought Williams to a level where they had not been for many years.” This season, though, the Spaniard has been dealing with a car that has fallen back after hopes were raised by last year’s progress.

Sainz admitted at Suzuka that the scale of the drop had caught the team out. The Williams driver said it had been “a shock for me, for the team, for James [Vowles], for Alex, for all the engineers,” and added that he had sensed trouble coming during the winter as delays mounted and the car started out overweight. “This bump is big, probably even bigger than what I expected,” he said.

Patrese still sees enough in Williams’ trajectory to make staying put the smarter call. He said the team “last year proved they are really improving” and pointed to its Mercedes power unit as another reason for confidence. He also linked the slow start to missing testing in Barcelona, and said the next step will be clearer soon: “We will see at the end of this month whether after the enforced break they can come out with a better car.”

For Sainz, that leaves the immediate question less about escape routes than whether Williams can recover quickly enough to justify patience while Red Bull’s own outlook grows harder to trust.