MIAMI, Florida — In the first and only practice session at the Miami Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz Jr. saw the potential in Williams’ challenger.
Carlos Sainz Jr. is trusting the process and the vision at Williams
Williams’ newest driver has his full faith in the team’s vision for the present, and the future
Photo by Kym Illman/Getty Images
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.
In Saturday’s qualifying session, he was finally able to “unleash” that potential.
Sainz stormed into Q3 and put the FW47 onto the third row, as he qualified sixth for the Miami Grand Prix. Speaking with the media, including SB Nation, after qualifying the driver outlined just how happy he was not just with the qualifying performance, but at Williams overall.
“Yeah, yeah, very happy after a very scrappy weekend, both on the operational side and the driving side where there’s a lot of mistakes happening from both the team and my side, where we were scratching our heads like, ‘how can we be so fast, but at the same time make so many mistakes in two or three sessions?’
“We managed to press the reset button and managed to show the potential that we’ve had the previous two to three sessions.
“So very happy with that, very happy with the capacity to press the reset and go again, and happy to finally unleash the potential that I saw in FP1 and quali yesterday to, to put the car in P6 only three-tenths away from pole, starts to be something serious. And yeah, very happy with that.”
Asked if the result was encouraging, Sainz stated that while the track might suit the F47 well, being so close to pole position gives him the “will to develop” the car over the rest of the season.
Even if that might not be the plan.
“I think to be three-tenths off pole, we must be doing things well this weekend.
“I think it might be a bit of an outlier where this track seems to suit our car quite nicely because since FP1 the balance and everything just fell in the window and in the sweet spot,” continued Sainz. “But at the same when I see those three-tenths to the top, my will to develop this car is there because I perfectly know where this car, the moment you put it in the wind tunnel and try and target the two or three areas that I’ve been telling the team where there’s clearly a lot more potential, and if the team manages to give me that, I think we could do a very big step quality wise.
“But the plan is the plan.
“We’re not going to do that.
“We’re gonna focus on next year and put all the eggs in that basket, but yeah, obviously that potential that I see especially only in my sixth race to be three-tenths off pole is encouraging.”
Even though Sainz sees the potential in this year’s challenger, he is trusting the plan, the process, and Team Principal James Vowles’ patient vision for the future. Even if he wants to push for more improvements to this year’s challenger.
“I like [James Vowles] because he’s a man of a very clear [vision].
“He has a plan and he will commit 100% to it.
“He trusts his feelings, his plan, his project.
“And I back him.
“That’s why I committed to James as an individual but also as a team to Williams because I see a project and a very clear ambition, very clear targets, and we need to commit to them and stick to them.
“He also promised me this year’s car would be an improvement to last year and so far he’s been a man of his word and I’m glad that that’s going in the right direction.”
So far that vision has Sainz, as he noted many times when speaking with us as evening settled in here in Miami, three-tenths off pole position, in just his sixth race in the FW47.
The driver might be right to trust the plan.
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