Carlos Sainz on brutal toll of Williams season: "Two big punches in the stomach"

Carlos Sainz says his Williams season has included the toughest psychological moments of his career

For Carlos Sainz, 2025 has been one of the "toughest" parts of his career after several difficult weekends with the Williams Formula 1 team.

Speaking ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix race weekend, the Spaniard looked back over his season with the Grove team, admitting that while his success at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has boosted his morale, this season has been a brutal challenge.

When asked about his expectations going into the Marina Bay race, he admitted the FW47 may not suit the high-downforce circuit.

“I think realistically speaking, whenever we put a higher downforce wing on our car, we seem to be a bit less competitive,” Sainz said. “I think if you see all of our great results have come with low downforce rear wings, low downforce tracks that our car tends to respond better to. That doesn't mean that here I will not try and perform and deliver a weekend like I did in Baku.

“I think that has to be my intention from here to the end of the year. Baku certainly was a big boost in motivation and even I would say a relief because it just confirmed the narrative that I was saying the whole year that speed is not a problem and that I just need to put together weekends and hopefully that serves as an example and I can follow that example until the end of the year.”

Further pressed on how difficult it has been to cope with poor results that have, for the most part, been out of his control, the four-time race winner admitted he had doubts.

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images

“It was certainly very tough. Probably one of the toughest psychologically moments of my career in terms of how much setbacks I had to deal with through the season,” he said. “For me, it was particularly tough after the summer break because I came back from the summer break full of energy, full of motivation, just refreshed with a bit of a new mindset, new approach.

“I did two strong qualis in Baku and Monza. I was running still in good positions both in Baku and Monza and in both times consecutively. The same pattern that in the first half of the season happened.

“So I was like, OK, I've changed my approach, I am full of energy and now two consecutive setbacks to bring me down again. So it was certainly not easy at all and very frustrating. I think you were starting to see it also in me how frustrating I was starting to get.

“But I kept the foot down and in the end the result paid off and I think in that sense just happy and proud of resilience because to come back from the summer break with refreshed energy and get two big punches in the stomach and have to do it all over again was tough.”

After joining Williams for the 2025 season, he now looks to build on the momentum gained on the Baku City Circuit as he aims to see out the year on a high.