James Vowles insists Williams are “getting more than I paid for” from Carlos Sainz. That’s despite the Spaniard’s slow start to life with his new team following his high-profile decision to join the team after losing his Ferrari seat.
Sainz’s seat was given to Lewis Hamilton and he spent several months last season choosing who to join next. In the end he opted for Williams and that looked to have been a masterstroke in pre-season testing as he hit the ground running and even set the fastest lap of the three-day event overall.
But so far his form in the competitive action has been underwhelming. Prior to this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, he had particularly struggling in qualifying and had not yet reached the top 10 on a Saturday. And the one point he scored was in the Chinese Grand Prix which he actually finished 12th on the road. But he was later bumped up by two places when Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified because their cars failed post-race checks.
His struggles have been further highlighted by the form of his team-mate. Alex Albon has responded superbly to the challenge of going up against a four-time race winner after a string of flop rookie team-mates by scoring 18 points across the first three rounds.
But even though that partnership looks lop-sided on paper, and not in Sainz’s favour, team principal Vowles continues to heap praise upon his new signing. “I think we are getting more than I paid for,” he insisted.
“The reason why I say that is because there’s two different ways to assess performance. Number one is obviously what you see in the car driving around, and in that regard, he’s making steps forward. I’m very comfortable that he will be on the pace shortly, but it takes time to acclimatise. We have quite a different car to the Ferrari.
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“But the second element where I’ve been very impressed with what he’s doing with working with our aerodynamics team, with our race engineering team, pretty much everyone throughout our organization, finding those last milliseconds. That’s the reason why I wanted him as part of this team and he’s delivering absolutely above my expectations.”
For the first time since he took charge of the team a little over two years ago, Vowles has two experienced and proven F1 racers at his disposal. Albon is yet to win a race in the sport but has impressed since his return to the F1 grid with Williams.
And when Sainz gets fully up to speed, he believes he will have two equally-balanced racers on his hands. Vowles added: “I use relative gaps, as does he. Yes, the difference now is when you’re a tenth off, there’s four cars that shuffle in between the two.
“But it’s a relative numbers game. Between him and Alex, I don’t think there’ll be a millisecond to spare when both are on song. That’s what he’s reviewing and that’s what I’m reviewing as well.”
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