{"id":364450,"date":"2025-08-22T10:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T10:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364450\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T10:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T10:53:11","slug":"carlos-sainz-has-now-made-a-decision-about-his-williams-future-as-first-year-exit-clause-emerges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364450\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Sainz has now made a decision about his Williams future as first-year exit clause emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Carlos Sainz has endured a frustrating start to life at Williams. He entered the summer break 16th in the championship, putting him on course for his lowest finish ever.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sainz<\/a> will feel this doesn\u2019t reflect the quality of his performances. Alex Albon has scored 77% of the team\u2019s points and sits eighth in the championship.<\/p>\n

Speaking last month, Sainz admitted that he missed fighting for pole<\/a> after racing for Ferrari between 2021 and 2024. He\u2019s qualified sixth three times but only made five Q3 appearances.<\/p>\n\nYEAR<\/strong><\/td>\nTEAM<\/strong><\/td>\nPOS<\/strong>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2015<\/td>\nToro Rosso<\/td>\n15th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2016<\/td>\nToro Rosso<\/td>\n12th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2017<\/td>\nToro Rosso\/Renault<\/td>\n9th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2018<\/td>\nRenault<\/td>\n10th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2019<\/td>\nMcLaren<\/td>\n6th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2020<\/td>\nMcLaren<\/td>\n6th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2021<\/td>\nFerrari<\/td>\n5th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2022<\/td>\nFerrari<\/td>\n5th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2023<\/td>\nFerrari<\/td>\n7th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2024<\/td>\nFerrari<\/td>\n5th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2025<\/td>\nWilliams<\/td>\n16th)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Carlos Sainz\u2019s championship position by season<\/p>\n

Sainz has also criticised Williams\u2019 execution<\/a>, which he feels has hurt his points tally. The team as a whole have exceeded expectations, but their star signing hasn\u2019t necessarily felt the benefit.<\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz to stay at Williams even though he had the option to leave<\/p>\n

There was talk last year that Sainz\u2019s Williams deal included an exit clause<\/a> allowing him to leave if Mercedes or Red Bull made an approach. Both teams have drivers out of contract for next year.<\/p>\n

James Vowles said Sainz could leave at the end of 2026<\/a>, or trigger an option to extend his deal. Many F1 contracts will feature similar provisions, given that the pecking order could change significantly under the new regulations.<\/p>\n

However, Auto Motor und Sport<\/a> have now confirmed that Sainz\u2019s contract contained an exit clause this year. He had the \u2018option to leave\u2019 almost immediately, which indicates some understandable reservations about joining the team who finished ninth in last year\u2019s championship.<\/p>\n

However, \u2018this will not happen\u2019 in light of Williams\u2019<\/a> \u2018strong performances\u2019. Despite Sainz\u2019s evident frustration, he still believes in Vowles\u2019 project.<\/p>\n

The team who missed a trick by not pursuing Carlos Sainz<\/p>\n

In the short term, perhaps Sainz would be an upgrade on Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes. But Toto Wolff couldn\u2019t reach an agreement with Sainz<\/a> last year, and he\u2019ll feel that Antonelli\u2019s long-term ceiling is higher.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an argument that Ferrari should re-sign Sainz amid Hamilton\u2019s struggles<\/a>. However, if any driver has earned the right to patience, it\u2019s the seven-time world champion. <\/p>\n

In reality, Red Bull are the team who should have aggressively pursued him. It\u2019s understood that Verstappen\u2019s camp have no issue with Sainz<\/a> despite previous claims of tension.<\/p>\n

A move last season would have been easier to execute, but with Yuki Tsunoda almost certain to lose his seat<\/a>, Sainz was the best semi-realistic option available. Unfortunately, it seems the window has closed.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Sainz would have turned down Red Bull<\/a> anyway. There\u2019s optimism that Williams will win races by 2028<\/a>, whereas uncertainty has taken hold at Milton Keynes as the Christian Horner\/Honda engine era comes to an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Sainz has endured a frustrating start to life at Williams. He entered the summer break 16th in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[6872,4199,707,101951,4200,79,16,15,107705],"class_list":{"0":"post-364450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-carlos-sainz","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula-1-driver-market","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-williams-racing"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115072048157107512","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}