Five days after Williams announced Carlos Sainz would stay on a multi-year deal, the Spaniard walked out of the Dutch Grand Prix having spelled out exactly what he had just re-committed to.

“We are pretty much where we expected, which is towards the back,” Sainz told reporters in Zandvoort, according to The Race.

“We are only quicker than Cadillac at the moment.”

Aston Martin arrived at Zandvoort with a fresh B-spec car and out-raced Williams all weekend, even though they sit below them in the constructors’ table.

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“You saw the Astons in race pace, they are a different league right now, so we couldn’t fight them,” Sainz said.

Williams stand ninth of the eleven teams on 11 points, per the constructors’ standings after the Dutch round. Aston Martin sit tenth on three; Cadillac, the sport’s new arrival, have yet to score.

The Albon apology

Sainz’s Sunday ended two laps down with a ten-second penalty on his record, after he locked up at Turn 1 on worn tyres and collected teammate Alex Albon. Albon retired on the spot.

“It’s not like we were fighting for anything big, but honestly it caught me so much by surprise that it’s apologies to him because it’s the last thing I wanted,” Sainz said.

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He accepted the sanction without argument.

‘A flawed concept’

The Zandvoort race-day remarks came 48 hours after Sainz had already delivered his most damning technical verdict of the year. Speaking before the race, he told reporters carried by GPFans that Williams had missed on the 2026 regulations at the drawing board.

“We’ve created a concept that can’t be developed much further because it’s a flawed concept,” he said.

“It’s not fast, and we don’t have the capacity to evolve it at the pace of the top teams, who are three seconds ahead, so it’s clear something isn’t working.”

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The Baku upgrade Williams have planned, Sainz warned, will not close a gap of “a second, a second and a half” to Racing Bulls when Aston Martin have shown that only a completely new car now moves the needle. He does not expect that new car to arrive this year.

The message to the factory

The tone was different when Sainz sat down with Motorsport.com earlier in the weekend to describe what he has been telling the Grove staff since pre-season testing.

“Take it personal. If we are not where we want to be or if we are going through a tough moment, take it personal,” he said.

“So if you really dig deep and go through that tough moment, you know that what’s after that is a 10 times better version of yourself.”

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Williams principal James Vowles called Sainz “a leader of this team” when he announced the extension on 19 August. The next round, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, runs 4-6 September; the Baku upgrade Sainz referenced is not scheduled to appear until later in the season.

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