As the saying goes, old habits die hard. Carlos Sainz knows this well, as during the first free practice session in Japan, he became the center of a funny moment in the pits. Perhaps still mentally thinking he was with Ferrari, the driver missed the Williams garage during his pit lane pass.
For the Spaniard, this is only his third weekend with Williams, a team he joined after being dropped by Ferrari. So far, he’s had some difficulty adapting to the new car.
This has been reflected in his results: tenth in qualifying in Australia, then retiring from the race, seventeenth in the China Sprint, and tenth at the end of the race, benefiting from various disqualifications. Throughout all of this, he’s always been behind his teammate Alex Albon.
For Carlos Sainz, it’s mainly about learning to understand his car’s behavior, which is very different from what he was used to at Ferrari. At the Maranello team, he had developed some habits that clearly don’t work at Williams and need to be “unlearned.”
However, in Japan, the Spaniard’s old habits affected another aspect. During FP1, Carlos Sainz was called back by the team to return to the pits. In Suzuka, the team’s garage is at the beginning of the pit lane, but the Madrid native got a little confused and, thinking the team was at the end of the pit lane, drove straight past it. This led to his engineer’s team radio, urging him to return to the pits, but by then, it was too late.
No major issues for Carlos Sainz, who simply completed another lap of the track before coming back in, but the situation remains curious. Below is the video of the incident.
Oh dear, Carlos 🥲
The Williams driver accidentally drove past his pit box during FP1 #F1 #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/p92gyiTxs6
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 4, 2025
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