Carlos Sainz recorded the fastest overall time of F1 pre-season testing last week in Bahrain. The Spanish driver spoke about his ‘ridiculously little’ testing and his “proposal” for the budget cap in the press conference last week in Bahrain.
Sainz was recently announced as director of the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers’ Association) Already, he has shown the qualities he will bring to the role. His recent remarks also showed that he is not against voicing new ideas.
A very busy period
F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain was part of a very busy period for Carlos Sainz. He made the most of track time, recording 194 laps behind the wheel of Williams’ 2025 challenger – the FW47. Unsurprisingly, Sainz explained how he would have preferred even more time to test. With several rookies on the grid he also explained how he felt this would benefit everyone.
“Feels weird that I got my day and a half and now I need to go racing,” Sainz explained during a F1 press conference on Day 3 of testing in Sakhir. “It feels not enough, feels very little, ridiculously little, the amount of time that we get into our cars before going to a race. But yeah, as ready as I can be with a day and a half and this strange weather of Bahrain. But I guess we’ll take it and see where we are.”
Initial feelings about the FW47
Having had so many laps on track, Sainz was asked for his initial feelings about the FW47. He said that they are “decent” and he referenced the fact he hit the ground running.
“You saw me going out yesterday and more or less hitting lap times straight away without many mistakes,” noted Sainz. “Although I think I spun once in Turn 1 with a beautiful C4. But yeah, I think I felt comfortable. But at the same time, I wish I tried five, six, seven setups more than what I’m trying. I feel like I don’t know exactly where to go with setup. I don’t know exactly where to go with driving, where to extract that last little bit of lap time and performance. But I guess I’ll have to discover that in the first few races once you start putting plenty of soft tyres in and low fuel. So, let’s see. I cannot tell you much more because the reality is that testing is testing and you don’t know.”
This is a phrase heard up and down throughout the paddock – you cannot know much from testing. Therefore, should the period be extended then maybe the onlooker and teams could learn more from testing and not have to wait until the opening race of the season. Sainz showed he has his own plans as to how testing could be even more worthwhile. Especially after Bahrain revealed unexpected issues.
Sainz had previously mentioned how he spun on the C4 tyre. He explained in greater detail as to how this has brought more questions than answers.
The C4 tyre was just simply not working
“It seems that for this track [the C4 tyre] was just simply not working, which is strange because the C4 in the past in Bahrain could still give you two or three tenths of lap time in a quali sim. And yesterday, I was kind of expecting that and hopefully go down to the twenty-eights. But I went up to the thirties…or I just didn’t do a lap. But the reality is that probably it’s just too soft for this tarmac. And, yeah,I think they’ve also made it a bit stiffer from what I’ve heard. So, maybe it just doesn’t have the step of grip that I expected to have.”
Sainz is in the position of being able to have these expectations due to the wealth of experience he has in the pinnacle of motorsport. He was joined in the press conference with F1’s new breed of rookies and explained how he could understand the frustration they have with testing.
“Even though I’m obviously no rookie, that day and a half of testing, I think is frustrating for me too, but I cannot imagine even for a rookie. I understand how difficult that makes things and how tricky the start of the season will be for some of these guys.”
Experience can really only be achieved by having real track time in a real car. Sainz claimed that F1 could better job in how teams go about testing.
“In the end, you have a lot of teams spending infinite amounts of money in simulators. You have drivers flying to the UK from Monaco to go to the simulator and I don’t understand why we get three days of testing when all that money could be invested into, I don’t know, eight days of testing. I’m not asking for too much.”
“I would always choose testing than going to a simulator”
The GPDA director then continued his passionate speech.
“My proposal would be to have put in the budget cap the number of days, put in the budget cap the simulator also and see where the teams want to spend their money, if it’s in the sim or it’s in ten testing days. Rookies would benefit and I think F1 teams would benefit because even though the simulators are good they are not as good as some of the engineers or people tend to believe they are. So, I would always choose testing than going to a simulator.”
This is obviously a conversation for another day – and one Sainz is keen to initiate. What is clear is that Williams have a talented driver who has already shown in little time what he is capable of. So, one can only imagine where the much-loved Spaniard will find himself on the grid come race day in Melbourne.
