Carlos Sainz: With a tailwind, the Williams is "a nightmare"

(Motorsport-Total.com) - Three years ago, Carlos Sainz won his first Formula 1 race at Silverstone, but in 2025, he and his Williams team are facing major problems on the track. The Spaniard finished 16th in free practice on Friday ( Formula 1 2025 live ticker ), trailing by 1.3 seconds, and is struggling with the strong wind.

"I think we all had our good and bad moments out there," he says. "When you have a headwind, the car feels great. When you have a tailwind, it's a nightmare. It was extremely difficult to keep the car on the track and be consistent."

"But we just ran through our program today, with the main focus on our reliability issues and improving them. Hopefully, we can focus more on performance tomorrow and find something else there."

How difficult things were for Sainz on Friday became clear, among other things, when he spun at the exit of Luffield Corner, when the Williams driver was sideways to the track and almost ran in front of Nico Hülkenberg as he rolled off. The Spaniard was cautioned by the race stewards for this action.

He explains: "You're standing there in the middle of the track and just want to drive as fast as possible. In these cars, you have zero visibility—you can't see anything from the sides. So you're trapped in a very strange, unfortunate position."

"I tried to get back on track as safely as possible because you definitely don't want to cause an accident," said Sainz. "In this case, the onboard footage makes it look worse than it actually was."

According to the stewards, Sainz looked to his right to check if another car was approaching. "The driver explained that due to the HANS system and the height of the headrest, he was unable to look to his right. He also misjudged his exact position on the track and assumed that other vehicles might be passing behind him."

However, by driving forward, Hülkenberg had to swerve to the left to avoid a collision.

"As this section of the track was secured with double-waved yellow flags, the potential danger to car 27 was somewhat reduced. However, this does not relieve a driver of the duty to ensure that he does not pose a danger to others - especially if he is unsure of his situation," the commissioners said.

"We believe that while the situation did not pose an immediate danger—especially given the double yellow phase—it certainly had the potential to do so. Therefore, the driver of car 55 was issued a caution."

Sainz therefore heads into qualifying with a lighter setback, hoping for slightly cooler conditions for Williams. "I think that would help us," he says. "Let's see what effect that has on the soft tyres – they're always difficult for us to get working."

"And then the wind: Honestly, if you're a bit lucky with the wind here, you can have a great round—or a pretty difficult one. I think it will be similar for everyone."