Carlos Sainz Signing Shows Williams Is Ready to Return to Excellence

The three-time Grand Prix winner made his highly anticipated decision Monday, opting to help lead one of the biggest turnaround projects in F1.

Carlos Sainz will leave Ferrari at the end of this F1 season, giving way to Lewis Hamilton. / Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

The last time Williams won a Formula One world championship, Carlos Sainz was 3 years old. His father, Carlos Sainz Sr., was at the pinnacle of World Rally racing and Canadian icon Jacques Villeneuve was in the midst of delivering a second straight title for the Grove outfit, capping off nearly two decades of dominance for the F1 team.

But that success has since evaporated at Williams. Over the last 26 years, the British outfit has added zero championships and rarely posted a competitive showing, turning a once-renowned team into somewhat of an afterthought.

That is until Monday, when Williams announced that it was signing Carlos Sainz to a multi-year deal beginning next season, pairing him with Alex Albon to complete the driver lineup. The contract, which has options to extend past an initial two years, will place the 29-year-old as the cornerstone of the team headed into a new regulations period in 2026.

Sainz, who will depart Ferrari in favor of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton at the start of next season, was the most successful—and most discussed—driver still available on the market and his decision will result in a domino effect to fill out the few remaining spots on the grid. Only four spots remain (one at Mercedes, one at Alpine, one at RB and one at Sauber) on the 2025 grid.

The signing also instantly vaults Williams back into the conversation as a team that can compete with the best of the best.

Another piece of the 2025 puzzle falls into place 🧩#F1 pic.twitter.com/DksaZGjwhm

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 29, 2024

Sainz is a proven winner, racking up three wins in the last three years, one in each season with Ferrari dating back to 2022. He’s finished on the podium 14 times in that same span, including five top-three results in ’24, even with the rise in performance from McLaren and Mercedes.

Sainz’s recent success is the culmination of a steadily improving career in F1, one he’s earned by working his way from teams in the midfield to those fighting for wins. Since his debut with Toro Rosso in 2015, the Madrid native has raced for Renault, McLaren and now Ferrari—rising up the ranks by being just a little bit better each season.

Williams, on the other hand, is headed in the wrong direction. Despite a small uptick last season under new team principal and former Mercedes strategy director James Vowles, 2024 has been a tremendous disappointment. Williams has just four points through 12 races, all of which have been scored by Albon. Logan Sargeant, the first American driver in F1 since ’15, has amassed just one point across his two seasons with the team. 

The last two years of futility have become the norm at Williams. Since 2004, the team has won just two races, with the victories coming eight years apart. In ’19, even with standout rookie George Russell, Williams scored just a single point across the entire season. The next year, the team didn’t even accomplish that, going scoreless for the first time in history.

Russell spent the first part of his F1 career with Williams before joining Mercedes in 2022. / Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The nadir in performance came at a particularly tumultuous and devastating time for the Williams family off the track. The longtime owners of the outfit sold the team to U.S. investment group Dorilton Capital in 2020 and team principal Claire Williams stepped down from the role, making it the first time in history that a member of the family would no longer be in leadership since the team’s inception in 1977. The following year, founder Frank Williams died at the age of 79, leaving behind a tremendous void in the F1 community.

But it hasn’t all been bad. Russell blossomed into the most sought-after talent in the paddock while at Williams, securing a long-term deal with Mercedes to helm the post-Hamilton era. Valtteri Bottas similarly kickstarted his career with the team, only to also make the jump up to Mercedes. He drove alongside Felipe Massa at the tail end of the Brazilian’s accomplished F1 career and the duo regularly found themselves competing for podiums. 

Now Sainz will give Williams perhaps its most talented driver since the days of Bottas and Massa—and at the peak of the 29-year-old’s career. It’s not a position he takes lightly either, fully aware of the storied history at Williams, even if the last days of glory came at a time when Sainz had barely learned to walk, much less get behind the wheel of a race car.

“The ultimate goal of bringing Williams back to where it belongs, at the front of the grid, is a challenge that I embrace with excitement and positivity,” Sainz said in the team release. “I am convinced that this team has all the right ingredients to make history again and starting on January 1 I will give my absolute best to drive Williams forward alongside every single member of the team.”

But more importantly, Sainz’s signing is a statement. Vowles and the powers that be at Williams are no longer content to scrap for places in the points, well out of contention for the ever-tightening competition at the front of the grid. Williams is eager to get back to the days of hoisting trophies and celebrating at the checkered flag, rather than searching for moral victories.

Sainz may be just the next piece of the puzzle but it’s a step in the right direction on the long road back to the top.