He is taking positive steps with Williams, such as one of the few who could advance in the Suzuka race, Hulkenberg twice already Doohan, in the final stretch, to reach the 14th despite a strategy with which he entered very late to place the final soft. The special equality in the middle zone makes the Saturday for Carlos Sainz, as for all others. With just one or two tenths of distance between five teams, the departure position conditions the race as a few years.
In Japan, on Saturday he was really close to his partner in the Q2, who gave way to the last round. While the Thai Anglo marked 1: 27,783 and 10th, Carlos stayed at 1: 27,836, who sent him to the 12th (before the sanction of three positions) despite the 0.053 that separated them. Less than nothing.
“We have worked a bit in the ‘set-up’ (adjustment) to bring it closer to what I want and I have adapted my piloting a bit to try to make sure that I do not expose some of the weaknesses of the car, for example when tightening in classification laps. At least I think I was in the rhythm of Alex both in classification and in the race, we will see if in other circuits I can be something more competitive. And with more and more I am optimistic, ”he said after Suzuka’s career, in which few could progress from the grill, few except Hamilton, Alonso, Carlos himself and few more.
“There are still many things to try in the ‘set-up’, we lose a lot of time in certain track situations. We have duties in that regard, but the car was good to score and if we started doing better weekends we will get it,” he added about the anomalous situation of being with his box to zero after three races and a sprint, while Albon has 18 points and has scored all the appointments of 2025
A different Bahrain
And Bahrain arrives, six weeks after the preseason winter tests, where Sainz left with the best total time of all participants. It is the first circuit in which you can compare with this FW47 what happened then, where it improved with each game of new rubber, to polish some aspects, although it will not be easy.
“In Bahrain it will be difficult to experiment with day training and night classification. But we will continue to take steps,” he said about this aspect, although Free 2 on Friday will be important because it is played at night, such as La Qualy and the race.
“The car has changed from Bahrain on the front wing and the ‘Set-UP’,” he says about the improvements introduced in his car since then. “I think it will be a different Bahrain with other temperatures, we will see how we are going there,” he says about a weekend that it is a personal challenge and where he hopes to take a definitive step forward. A reset to start again and 20 weekends ahead.