Williams’ growth in 2025 is not the result of a sudden technical revolution. It is instead the outcome of a slow, methodical internal process that also carries a clear signature: that of Carlos Sainz.
When he arrived in Grove, nobody was expecting a poster boy or a headline-grabbing superstar. What the team needed was a driver capable of guiding a project, reading a car, and setting technical priorities for a squad that often had more questions than answers. In that sense, Sainz has always been a guarantee. At McLaren, he brought order to a technical department rebuilt from the ground up; at Ferrari, his analyses were considered a benchmark. That view is shared in Maranello as well, where his contribution in defining working directions was regarded as extremely valuable.
After a difficult start, Sainz won the comparison with Albon
At Williams, the script appears not to have changed. Team principal James Vowles made it clear after the opening weekends of the season: “Carlos is not someone who raises his voice, but he forces you to look at the right details. He asks the questions that matter.” And that was exactly what the team needed.
Sainz worked on the front end, on braking balance, and on the feeling at corner entry. He asked for a car that was easier to read, and step by step the team began to deliver it. The progress was not spectacular, but it was constant. One Williams engineer summed it up even more clearly: “With Carlos we understood better where we lose time and why. It’s not just feedback: it’s a method.”
The season told precisely that story. The FW47 did not turn into a missile — also because the English team’s focus was clearly on the following year — and it did not fight consistently for life-changing positions. What it did do, however, was stop being overly unpredictable. It became a car that, in the second part of the season, reacted to changes, that could be interpreted more easily above all by the Spaniard, and that largely delivered what Williams had prepared back at the factory.
And in the rebuilding path of a team like Williams, that was worth as much as a major aerodynamic upgrade. It is no coincidence that if in the first part of the season the Sainz–Albon comparison stood at 5–7 in qualifying and 7–1 in races in favour of the Thai driver, from Spa onwards Sainz turned it around, beating him 9–3 in qualifying and 5–4 in races.
James Vowles set the direction, Sainz reinforced it: now Williams has a future
Later in the year, James Vowles added another key perspective: “Carlos brings structure. He brings processes. And when a driver helps you put order into things, half the work is already done.” Sainz has never been a driver who defines himself through catchy one-liners. He is the opposite: someone who measures, dissects and builds. And today, this Williams looks exactly like a team that is relearning how to walk with a steadier step.
The Grove-based team finished the championship in fifth place, best of the rest, a full 45 points ahead of Racing Bulls, 48 ahead of Aston Martin, and so on. A very positive result that changes the internal perception: the team now feels it has a direction. And in a medium-term project, that is often the only thing that truly matters.
Sainz did not promise miracles when he arrived in England from Maranello, but above all hard work. And Williams, at last, has someone guiding it in the same direction day after day. That, too, is a way of becoming ‘great’ again. And perhaps, for a team searching for a real identity, it is the most important step of all.
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