Carlos Sainz spotted back on track ahead of Williams F1 2025 debut
Carlos Sainz is preparing for his first season as a Williams driver
Carlos Sainz’s preparations for the F1 2025 season stepped up a gear with a private Williams test in Barcelona on Sunday, it has emerged.
It came just four days after his successor at Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, crashed out of testing at the Spanish Grand Prix venue.
Carlos Sainz appears in Williams TPC test in Barcelona
Sainz suffered a crushing blow a year ago when he was informed that his Ferrari contract would not be extended beyond the F1 2024 season, with the Spaniard forced to make way for seven-time World Champion Hamilton.
Sainz responded by producing the most complete season of his career to date, claiming two victories in Australia and Mexico.
The 30-year-old was eventually snapped up by the Williams team, with a multi-year contract confirmed 24 hours after last year’s Belgian Grand Prix.
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Unlike Hamilton, who was forced to see out the remainder of his Mercedes contract until its December 31 2024 expiry date, Sainz was allowed to link up with his new employers at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi after Ferrari agreed to an early release.
Sainz completed a total of 146 laps on his Williams test debut behind the wheel of the team’s 2024 car, posting the second-fastest time of the day behind former Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton’s preparations for his first season as a Ferrari driver suffered a setback on Wednesday when he crashed heavily in the final sector at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya during a TPC [Testing of Previous Car] test.
The former Mercedes driver escaped from the incident unharmed, but the extent of the damage and the significant repairs required meant Leclerc was unable to take over for the rest of the day’s running as planned.
Williams have confirmed that Sainz himself took to the Spanish GP circuit just days later as the team carried out their own private test session with a 2023-spec car on Sunday.
Williams split their day’s running between Sainz and Alex Albon, with Albon participating in the morning session before the new signing took over the FW45 for the afternoon.
Under Formula 1’s revised TPC rules for F1 2025, drivers competing in the World Championship are limited to a maximum of 1,000 kilometres spread across four separate test days across the season.
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It is unclear if Williams are planning any further TPC outings for Sainz and Albon ahead of F1’s official pre-season test in Bahrain later this month.
Williams announced last month that the team will unveil their F1 2025 car, the FW47, at Silverstone on February 14, four days ahead of F1’s first-ever collective season-launch event attended by all 10 teams in London.
The FW47 will be launched in a special one-off colour scheme, with teams understood to be banned from showcasing their permanent F1 2025 liveries until the O2 Arena extravaganza on February 18.
Speaking last month, Sainz admitted that the buildup to the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 16 is an “important time” for his Williams career.
And he revealed that he and the team have put a “solid plan” in place for the winter as time ticks towards lights out in Melbourne.
He said:?“It’s an important time for the team and we are all going to push to bring Williams back to the front of the grid as soon as possible.
“I was very impressed with the team back in Abu Dhabi. After a long year, it was great to watch the motivation and effort that everyone put in at such an important test.
“Thanks to that, we’ve been able to put together a solid plan and we have already started working on it to make sure we are as prepared as possible ahead of the pre-season test and first race.
“2025 will be an exciting year and we are fully committed to putting together a strong season.”
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