Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz has expressed skepticism that Williams’s upcoming B-spec car will deliver the performance leap required to fight for points on merit during the current season. According to an interview on The Fast And The Curious podcast, the Spanish driver assessed that the Grove-based team faces a massive deficit to close down in the current Formula 1 championship.
Williams’s Struggles and 2026 Season Performance
Williams faced a difficult start to the 2026 season after missing private testing in Barcelona at the end of January. The team arrived at pre-season testing in Bahrain on the back foot with an overweight car, forcing Sainz and teammate Alex Albon to scrap for minor results.
Weight-loss upgrades introduced at the Miami Grand Prix helped stabilize the team’s standing, lifting Williams to eighth place in the constructors’ championship with 11 points. However, the raw pace of the FW48 remains far behind the front-running and midfield pace.
The B-Spec Upgrade and Gap to the Midfield
Williams team principal James Vowles has indicated that a major upgrade package will arrive around the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, designed to move Sainz and Albon into consistent points contention. Despite this, Sainz remains realistic about what the package can achieve.
“It is very difficult for us to score points. It is almost impossible to score points with the lack of performance we have,” Sainz said on the podcast. “That doesn’t mean we cannot score points in the odd race where a lot of things happen, but the reality is that we don’t have the performance, and when the B-spec car arrives, I don’t believe it will give us as much as one second per lap, which is what we need to get into points contention.”
Comparing Performance Gaps in Formula 1
Sainz provided stark context regarding the performance spread across the grid compared to his previous campaign with Ferrari. Last season, when he finished fifth in the championship standings, his machinery sat only four to five tenths off McLaren, which secured the championship.
By contrast, the current Williams package trails Mercedes by two seconds per lap—a margin Sainz described as “two worlds in Formula 1″—while sitting a full second behind VCARB.
“So, unfortunately, really big gaps have opened up this year and, if we want to correct them and get back onto the right path, we need some very big changes and probably for that we need a winter to correct the difficulties that we’re having,” Sainz stated.