Carlos Sainz has been publicly identified by Williams boss James Vowles as his number one driver target to race alongside Alex Albon for 2025 F1.
According to James Vowles, Carlos Sainz’s decision to join Williams for the 2025 F1 season should be “easy,” and the team’s interest in the outgoing Ferrari driver is a confirmation of their ambitions.
The three-time F1 race winner is one of the key players in the the latest Formula 1 silly season as it picks up steam after Lewis Hamilton was confirmed to take over his Ferrari seat for 2025 F1.
The Spaniard enjoyed the best start to a season ever after his victory at the Australian Grand Prix, sparking rumours that Mercedes and Red Bull would be interested in signing him. However, Sainz has seen these opportunities evaporate in recent weeks.
Sainz is still looking for his next Formula 1 seat, and the Williams team boss has picked him as their top target for 2025, replacing Logan Sargeant.
Although Sargeant was a promising young driver when he joined the sport, he has struggled to maintain consistency during his time with the team. He has managed to rack up just one career point, which came after two cars were disqualified.
Williams team boss Vowles said to Sky F1 that Sainz is the driver the Grove outfit wants to see alongside Alex Albon, who recently signed a new multi-year contract, demonstrating his clear desire for this to happen.
“Number one target is Carlos,” said Vowles, who went on to expand on his admiration for Sainz, picking out not only his 2023 Singapore victory as a standout performance, as he became the only non-Red Bull winner of the season, but also his response to a Q2 crash at the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix, which he rebounded from to almost match team-mate Charles Leclerc in Q3.
“He’s a race-winning driver that last year, against all odds, beat Max in Singapore with a brilliant drive and that’s not the first time.
“He’s intelligent in how he approaches things, logical, incredibly quick. What he did this year in Shanghai, it’s going to sound like a negative, it’s not, in qualifying he crashed and we’ve all been there to a certain extent.
“It’s an impressive athlete that can reset themselves, go back out and then beat your teammate in that condition.
“I think that shows you just how strong he is as a driver. I think any team on the grid would be fortunate to have someone like Carlos alongside them.”
Williams has claimed 16 titles in their Formula 1 history, therefore they are no strangers to success, however, their most recent victory was in 1997. In recent seasons, Williams has more often placed towards the back of the grid, placing P10 and last in four of the past six seasons.
Production issues prevented them from even bringing a car to test in 2019, but Vowles has made it known to the rest of the paddock that this is no longer the case thanks to Dorilton Capital’s support.
Vowles claimed that Williams is going through a change, which is made clear by their pursuit of Sainz while he hinted at a number of really great signings that will be revealed over time.
“The main thing is this, there’s a reason why I left Mercedes to come here,” he said. “This isn’t the Williams of old. And I think first and foremost, the fact that we are having Sainz on our list will certainly show you this isn’t how we performed of late.
“We are prepared to have a driver line-up that I think is going to be one of the best on the grid if it’s achieved. That’s a different era that we’re going into. We’re investing 10s, if not hundreds of millions to make this team back to where it was in terms of success.
“This is just part of the reason why I’ve changed [teams from Mercedes]. There is in the background, a number of really great signings that will slowly start edging out into the world over the next few weeks.
“But this really is a good journey. We’re now starting to see the hard work that started 12 months ago come into play. And that gives me every reason to be confident that we’re moving forward.
“Williams also was a team that was 10th for many years. Yes, last year was seventh and we started this year poorly.
“Keep an eye out for us, we’re now starting to put performance on the car race by race. This is a different entity to what it was before.”
