Sainz makes eye-opening ‘half a year’ Williams prediction

Carlos Sainz has acknowledged it will take half a year before he is driving at his optimal level at Williams this year.

Sainz has joined the Grove-based squad on a multi-year deal following a four-season stint at Ferrari.

Having spent the last few seasons competing towards the front of the grid, Sainz will likely be shuffled down the pecking order this year as Williams look to long-term gains.

The Spaniard has been working with the team throughout the winter break to integrate himself into the set-up.

As he prepares to put the car through its paces over the coming weeks, Sainz admitted it will take half of the season before he is able to extract the maximum from the FW47.

“From my experience, the adaptation process with only three days of testing, which is one and a half per driver, it takes around half a year to really understand all the tricks and the little details of the car,” Sainz told media including RacingNews365.

“If [more] testing would exist, that process would be a little bit shorter.

“But there are things - the first time you use intermediate tyres, the first time you go onto a soft tyres but then the soft tyre might be a C3 one weekend and a C4 another.”

Sainz expects to be instantly competitive

Sainz has joined Albon at the team for the upcoming seasons and is the first race winner to sign for the squad since Robert Kubica in 2019.

His experience and knowledge of various teams is set to offer Williams a boost with the 30-year-old already confirming he has shared insights from his time at Ferrari.

Having accepted it will take time to sharpen his performance at his new team, Sainz maintained he can still be competitive from the opening round.

“There are so many things that you need to go weekend by weekend, learning and experiencing - this doesn't mean that you can’t be competitive,” he said.

“I believe if you are good at adapting and you do a good winter with your team, you can be competitive straight away.

“But there's always the last tenth or the last two-tenths from the car that you learn as the year goes by, you start to work better with your engineers.

“You start extracting performance, not only from your side of the car but also from everyone around you from different departments.”