Carlos Sainz: “I’m a team player and do what the team asks” | F1 Emilia Romagna GP. Carlos Sainz admits he nearly disobeyed a pit stop order at Imola.

Carlos Sainz, an unlucky start to the season
Last year, it was fair to assume that Carlos Sainz’s move from Ferrari to Williams would significantly set him back. However, the start of the 2025 season is proving that the “Smooth Operator” made the right choice: among the offers he received 12 months ago, the one from the Grove-based team turned out to be the best option, as the FW47 is clearly the fifth-best car on the grid, and under certain conditions has even been the fourth-fastest.

However, it’s mainly Alexander Albon who has taken advantage of the car’s speed, finishing in the top 5 at three Grands Prix (Melbourne, Miami, and Imola), while #55 has struggled more and, for various reasons, has collected just a quarter of his teammate’s points (11 versus 40). The recent Imola GP was no exception: although Carlos Sainz outqualified Albon, he was hampered by a very early pit stop to cover Charles Leclerc’s undercut, which backfired when a Virtual Safety Car later effectively shut the door on his shot at a top-5 finish—something Alex Albon managed thanks to a perfectly timed strategy.

Carlos Sainz’s words
Commenting on the Santerno race, Carlos Sainz explained he came close to ignoring the pit stop call from the team and race engineer Gaetan Jago after just 11 laps: “If I’m honest, stopping that early was never part of my plan. When the call to box came, I was very close to not coming in and disobeying it, but I’m a team player and obviously the team has more information than I do, so I followed the order.”

“It was a surprise, and we absolutely need to improve how we communicate and how we understand each other on Sundays—that’s one of my strengths and something I need to build on with the team,” he added. “We need to improve race-day execution, because with the pace I had this weekend, it’s frustrating to finish eighth and see Alex fifth with a normal race plan. In a way, it’s better to learn all this this year, in case next season we have an even more competitive car to fight for something really important, but at the same time, we need to see progress already this season. We’ve already thrown away a lot of points.”