OVERVIEW
Carlos Sainz's departure from Ferrari for Williams was one of those moves that make you wonder whether you misread the contract, or whether the driver did. A race winner, a man who had averaged 5.7 at the finish in 2024, choosing to join a team that had spent the better part of a decade trying to remember what winning felt like.
The 2025 numbers explain the skepticism. Sainz's average finish plummeted to 12.2 across 24 races -- a figure that would be alarming were it not for the context of Williams' competitive position. His best result was third, achieved twice, suggesting the Spaniard can still extract extraordinary results when circumstances align. But four retirements and a DNS told a bleaker story of unreliability.
Across 72 races in our dataset (one fewer than his peers due to the DNS), Sainz has experienced the full spectrum of Formula One fortune. From Ferrari podium regular to Williams midfield warrior, the Spaniard has traded guaranteed results for a long-term project. Whether the gamble pays off depends on what Williams can build around him.
SEASON BY SEASON
2025 -- Williams (avg finish 12.2, 24 races) The adjustment year. Sainz arrived at Williams with the expectation that his talent would elevate the team; instead, the FW47's limitations exposed just how much of his previous success had been underwritten by Ferrari's engineering. His 11.2 average grid and 12.2 average finish suggested a car that was losing ground on Sundays. Yet the flashes of brilliance were unmistakable: two third-place finishes -- in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi -- showed that when the stars aligned, Sainz could drag the Williams into territory it had no right to occupy. He scored 54 points, a decent haul for a team that had scored 17 the previous year.
2024 -- Ferrari (avg finish 5.7, 23 races) Sainz's final Ferrari campaign was his statistical best: a 5.7 average finish with victories, proving he could compete at the very front of the grid. He qualified 5.7 on average -- a perfect equilibrium between Saturday and Sunday performance. It was, in many ways, the season that made his departure for Williams so puzzling.
2023 -- Ferrari (avg finish 8.0, 23 races) A solid but unspectacular year. Sainz averaged 8.0 with a best finish of first, though his 5.7 qualifying average suggested a car that was faster over one lap than over race distance.
DRIVING STYLE
Sainz is a hard-compound strategist who has learned his craft at the highest level. With 1,944 laps on hards and 1,640 on mediums, he favors the durable approach -- a tendency reinforced by his relatively low soft count of 493. At Williams, this conservative approach has been particularly valuable: the FW47 punishes aggressive drivers, and Sainz's tyre management has been one of the team's few consistent assets.
His top speed of 358 km/h is solid, and his 238 laps on intermediates suggest adequate wet-weather experience, though he is not among the grid's rain specialists.
The most revealing number in Sainz's profile is the shift in his qualifying-to-finish differential. At Ferrari, he qualified and finished in near-identical positions (5.7 and 5.7 in 2024). At Williams, he qualifies 11.2 and finishes 12.2 -- losing a position on average. The car simply cannot hold its qualifying performance over a race distance. That Sainz has extracted two podiums from this machinery speaks to a driver whose talent remains undimmed, even as his circumstances have changed dramatically.