Nov.9 (GMM) Carlos Sainz admits Williams is in such a difficult situation that he would not mind if the 2026 season ended early in Las Vegas.
With uncertainty continuing over the final races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the Spaniard says Williams has almost nothing left to gain from its troubled car.
“We’re in a very difficult situation,” Sainz said after another frustrating weekend in Brazil.
“There’s nothing more we can do with our car. We’re very slow in the wet and dry, on slicks, in mixed conditions, and in the rain.”
Sainz said the lack of pace made even managing a race difficult.
“We’re going so slow that we get lapped, the tyre cools down, then you heat it up again, and we get lapped again,” he explained.
“In Las Vegas, we might have a chance to do something, although with this performance, I’d prefer it to be the last race of the year.”
Team boss James Vowles admits the situation is painful, but insists Williams deliberately sacrificed 2026 performance to prepare for next year.
“Our development shifted early to 2027,” he said.
“The chassis we brought to Baku was the 2027 model, perfectly carried forward, but the money was spent this year to get us where we needed to be.”
Vowles revealed Williams had even developed aerodynamic upgrades in the wind tunnel that it deliberately chose not to race.
“It’s incredibly painful. I can’t tell you how painful it was to sit in a meeting and make these decisions,” he said.
“You want to make every millisecond on track.”
He admitted Williams now needs luck to score points, making further investment in the current car difficult to justify.
“We recognise that with this car, we’ll only score points at the moment if we get lucky, and the reality is that we’re better off investing in the future.”