Carlos Sainz driver profile: from Ferrari wins to the Williams project
Carlos Sainz spent four seasons at Ferrari winning races and then chose Williams. At the time it looked like a step down. In 2026, with Williams rebuilding around Mercedes power and a genuine investment programme, it looks more like a driver reading the timing of the sport correctly.
Carlos Sainz: Fast Facts
- Full name: Carlos Sainz Vazquez de Castro
- Date of birth: 1 September 1994
- Born in: Madrid, Spain
- Nationality: Spanish
- Father: Carlos Sainz Sr, double World Rally Champion and Dakar winner
- F1 debut: 2015 Australian Grand Prix, Toro Rosso
- Previous teams: Toro Rosso, Renault, McLaren, Ferrari
- 2026 team: Atlassian Williams-Mercedes
- Car number: 55
- Team-mate: Alexander Albon
The other Carlos Sainz
Being the son of a two-time World Rally Champion is a complicated inheritance. It opens doors and it sets a standard that most children of famous drivers never reach.
Sainz won the Formula Renault 3.5 title in 2014 and arrived in Formula 1 the following year at Toro Rosso, in the same car as a 17-year-old Max Verstappen. Being measured against Verstappen in your rookie season is one of the harsher introductions the sport offers. Sainz came out of it with his reputation intact, which at the time was not a given.
The long climb to Ferrari
What followed was a career built on being the driver teams could rely on.
Renault, then McLaren, where he formed a well-matched pairing with Lando Norris and helped drag the team back towards the front. Then Ferrari from 2021, where he did the thing that is hardest to do at Maranello: he beat his team-mate often enough to matter, and won races in seasons where the car was not the fastest.
His first win came at Silverstone in 2022. The one people remember is Singapore in 2023, where he controlled a race from the front and ended Red Bull’s unbeaten season, managing the pace behind him lap by lap. Australia and Mexico followed in 2024.
Then Ferrari signed Lewis Hamilton, and Sainz had to find a seat.
Why Williams
He could have waited for something safer. He chose a team that had spent years at the back but had just been bought, refinanced and staffed with people from winning organisations.
The logic was about timing. The 2026 regulations reset the competitive order, and a team with Mercedes power and a rebuilt technical department had a better chance of moving up under a new rulebook than a midfield team standing still. Sainz was betting on the reset, not on the 2025 standings.
Alongside Alexander Albon, he gives Williams something it has not had in a long time: two drivers who would both be comfortably employed anywhere on the grid.
What to judge him on
Sainz has never had a season where he was clearly the fastest man in the field, and he has never had a season where a team regretted signing him. He is the driver who scores when the car allows it and does not throw races away when it does not.
That is an unglamorous description. It is also exactly what a rebuilding team needs from the senior side of its garage.
For current standings and the latest, see our Formula 1 coverage. Profile last updated 2 September 2026.