Eddie Jordan’s mystery ‘issue’ involving Carlos Sainz and Williams

Eddie Jordan has an “issue” that he wants to flag up regarding Carlos Sainz and Williams… but we are still waiting.

Sainz found himself in the position of contesting the entire F1 2024 campaign knowing that it was his last with Ferrari, the team having agreed a pre-season deal to sign seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes, effective from F1 2025 in a multi-year agreement.

Eddie Jordan leaves us with Carlos Sainz and Williams cliffhanger

Additional reporting by Sam Cooper

Sainz – a winner of two grands prix in 2024 to take his overall F1 victory tally to four – was linked with a move to almost every team on the grid, including Mercedes and Red Bull, but ultimately settled on Williams as his new home, signing for F1 2025 and beyond to become Alex Albon’s new team-mate.

However, something isn’t quite sitting right for Jordan as Sainz gears up for his first Williams campaign.

Speaking alongside 13-time grand prix winner David Coulthard on the Formula For Success podcast, Jordan had broken off from some Hamilton and Ferrari talk to say: “Carlos, we can talk about him, because I have an issue that I want to bring up about Williams and stuff there.”

But, Jordan would go no further than that, leaving this “issue” a mystery for the time being.

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Jordan had previously been one of Ferrari’s harshest critics over their decision to drop Sainz in favour of Hamilton, at one point going as far as to say that chairman John Elkann “must have rocks in his head” to have sanctioned that deal.

However, with Hamilton’s first race as a Ferrari driver – the Australian Grand Prix on March 16 – fast approaching, Jordan has changed his stance.

“I think he will be a huge draw,” said Jordan on Hamilton. “I think he’s not just box office for Formula 1, I think he’s box office everywhere, particularly in the Americas, in Asia, we know about Europe.

“I’m totally warm to the idea that Ferrari, for all sorts of reasons, particularly commercial, made the right decision.”

So, as Hamilton chases that record eighth World Championship now a Ferrari driver, Sainz has dived into the Williams project headed by team boss James Vowles, who has the F1 summit in his sights.

While a great deal of the focus is on the new F1 2026 regulations with that goal in mind, a full F1 2025 campaign waits ahead and on Friday, Sainz, Albon and Vowles were present at Silverstone to meet Williams’ new creation, the FW47.

Sainz had the honour of driving the first install laps in the FW47, and believes the “inside info” he has collected in his career until now is already being tapped into by Williams.

Sainz started his F1 career at Toro Rosso before a move to Renault, impressing in his subsequent stints with McLaren and Ferrari ahead of joining Williams.

“Well, obviously, I have a lot of things that I can talk about from my past, previous life,” Sainz told media including PlanetF1.com when asked where his input has been felt the most so far at Williams.

“What’s been very important to me, and what I like from this team, is that they’re extremely excited to hear me, to listen and they’re asking a lot of questions.

“In every meeting that I’m in, everyone is feeling free also to ask these questions, and these meetings are going on for long periods of time, and in all the meetings, we are exceeding the planned time of one hour that that meeting should take.

“So I see motivation, I see will, I see excitement, I see people that are just willing to make that process as quick as possible and see what we can get from my inside info, to make this thing competitive.

“And I can, without going into the detail of technically what I can bring, because it’s too much of a technical question, I feel everything that I’ve said, it’s been applied also, and I think it could have an impact soon.

“Also very important, I think Alex [Albon] is being extremely open with me about the secrets of the 2024 car, the 2023 [car] where we were coming from, and this is helping to put both feedbacks together and try to find the right direction to follow.”

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