Carlos Sainz shifts focus to 'little wins' amid Williams' early season struggles

Carlos Sainz says he must focus on achieving "little wins" as Williams endures a painful start to the 2024 season, with an overweight and uncompetitive car leaving the team mired at the back of the grid. Despite scoring a point in China, the Spaniard admits their current package is not enough to reliably escape Q1, forcing a mindset shift for the long year ahead.

Why it matters:

Williams entered the season hoping to build momentum toward the 2026 regulation reset, but its immediate reality is a performance crisis. Sainz's pragmatic focus on incremental gains highlights the psychological challenge for a driver and team when long-term ambitions clash with short-term competitive hardship, a situation that can define a season's morale and development trajectory.

The details:

• The FW46 car's primary issues are being significantly overweight and lacking outright performance, which has resulted in a slump toward the back of the field.
• Sainz's point in Shanghai was a rare bright spot, but both he and teammate Alex Albon were eliminated in Q1 during that same weekend, underscoring the car's fundamental lack of pace.
• The driver revealed that even what he felt was a good lap in China was not enough to progress, directly hampered by the car's weight penalty on the timesheets.
• Sainz acknowledges the problem extends beyond weight, stating the team needs "big steps in performance" to show its true value and must "keep digging."

What's next:

The team faces a steep development hill to climb out of its current position. Sainz's strategy is to maintain motivation by targeting small, achievable improvements race-by-race, as a wholesale turnaround before the 2026 project appears unlikely. The focus will be on extracting maximum value from the current package while laying the groundwork for the future, a difficult balancing act that will test the team's resilience throughout the season.