Carlos Sainz has committed his future to Williams with the Spaniard agreeing a multi-year deal to race alongside Alex Albon.
The 29-year-old has been on the look-out for a seat for 2025 after losing his Ferrari drive to seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.
Sainz has had no shortage of suitors, with Williams, Sauber/Audi and Alpine all keen to get his signature – but it was James Vowles’ Williams project that ultimately got the Spaniard’s seal of approval.
He’ll race for the team for 2025 and 2026, giving Williams continuity across a major regulation change that will see a new aerodynamic profile and sweeping new power unit rules that include the use of 100% sustainable fuel.
“I am very happy to announce that I will be joining Williams Racing from 2025 onwards," said Sainz. "It is no secret that this year’s driver market has been exceptionally complex for various reasons and that it has taken me some time to announce my decision.
"However, I am fully confident that Williams is the right place for me to continue my F1 journey and I am extremely proud of joining such a historic and successful team, where many of my childhood heroes drove in the past and made their mark on our sport. The ultimate goal of bringing Williams back to where it belongs, at the front of the grid, is a challenge that I embrace with excitement and positivity.
"I am convinced that this team has all the right ingredients to make history again and, starting on January 1, I will give my absolute best to drive Williams forward alongside every single member of the team.
"I want to thank James Vowles and the entire Board of Williams for their trust and determination. Their solid leadership and convictions have played an important role in my decision-making.
"I truly believe that the core of every successful team lies amongst their people and their culture. Williams is synonymous with heritage and pure racing, the foundations of the project that lies ahead of us are very strong and I am really looking forward to being part of it starting next year.”
Williams are in the midst of a rebuild, spearheaded by ex-Mercedes man Vowles who is bidding to turn a team that has fallen on harder times and lingers in the bottom half of the pack back into the behemoth that once crushed their rivals to dominate the championship. Having re-signed one exciting talent in Alex Albon, Vowles identified Sainz very early on as a potential candidate for the project. Having never really interacted with the Sainzes, he lined up a first meeting at last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.“The first time I spent time with his family was in Abu Dhabi,” Vowles tells me exclusively, just moments after the announcement. “We had to run them around the back so they could come upstairs and come to my office to chat [without being seen]. That was the first time I chatted to all of them, and it was the first time I got to know them.
Vowles said: "Carlos joining Williams is a strong statement of intent from both parties. Carlos has demonstrated time and again that he is one of the most talented drivers on the grid, with race-winning pedigree, and this underlines the upwards trajectory we are on. Carlos brings not just experience and performance, but also a fierce drive to extract every millisecond out of the team and car; the fit is perfect.
“In Alex and Carlos we will have one of the most formidable driver line-ups on the grid and with huge experience to guide us into the new regulations in 2026. Their belief in this organisation’s mission demonstrates the magnitude of the work going on behind the scenes. People should be in no doubt about our ambition and momentum as we continue our journey back to competitiveness – we are here, we are serious and with Dorilton’s backing we are investing in what it takes to return to the front of the grid."
Why did Vowles want Sainz so badly? Well, the Spaniard is arguably one of the best performing drivers of the moment, and secured the third victory of his career earlier this year in Australia. He’s also got a proven track record of delivering and enhancing teams wherever he’s been – from Toro Rosso to Renault, McLaren to Ferrari.
“I needed a leader, not just someone who is quick in the car,” says Vowles. “I wanted everything around them to be just right in order to create performance. Carlos has that. If you look at every team he’s gone to – look at where they started and where they finished. You’ll see he has a history of ending in a much better place in the team than when he started.”
Vowles was very public in his chase of Sainz. And he was relentless. He didn’t want to take ‘no’ for an answer.
That meant Vowles had “more late-night events in a hotel room than I want to think about! [There were] a lot of late nights, lots of phone calls and him having the space to be able to think about it before we executed”.
One thing that was non-negotiable was the length of the contract. Vowles wasn’t interested in just a one-year deal and having Sainz as a seat warmer while the Spaniard looked for somewhere better for 2026. He wanted commitment to the project.
“There were moments across the last few months where I’ve said ‘if you’re coming for the money or the short term, it won’t work for either party,’” he adds. “This is a proper journey. It’s going to be difficult, but incredibly rewarding.”
It's a huge shot in the arm for the Williams project that Sainz chose Williams over the incoming Audi works project and the works outfit of Alpine, who dangled the carrot of chasing a Mercedes power unit supply.
“He was the first to point out to us that the opposition is incredible,” adds Vowles. “We have one of the biggest OEMs in the world [Audi], one his father has won with. You can’t easily turn it down. You have a team that has won a race more recently than we have. We can’t ignore that. But what he saw with us is not where we are today but where we’re going.”
With the confirmation that Sainz will be joining the Grove outfit, it also means that Logan Sargeant will be vacating the Williams seat for next year with the team saying they "will give Logan every support as he looks to continue his racing career for 2025 and into the future."
Vowles added: “I also want to thank Logan for everything he has done for the team and know he will continue to fight hard for us in the races ahead.”