Who slept worst last night: Carlos Sainz
It is almost exactly 10 years since Formula 1 first took to the streets of Baku in June 2016. Everyone was curious to see what Azerbaijan’s Grand Prix debut would bring, and plenty had predicted a chaotic race littered with crashes on the street circuit. In the end, things turned out rather differently, and the European Grand Prix sent plenty of Formula 1 fans to sleep – and that was in the early afternoon.
I still vividly remember that, in the Baku media centre – unconventionally housed not in the paddock itself but in the Hilton next door – quite a few of my fellow journalists weren’t even watching Formula 1. They were watching Le Mans. At the most iconic of all 24-hour races, the leading Toyota broke down in the final minute, handing Porsche an utterly unexpected victory. Drama of historic proportions.
Many have probably long since forgotten who won that inaugural race in Baku. It was Nico Rosberg – who would go on to become F1 world champion a few months later. And the man who, during yesterday afternoon’s English-language Sky broadcast, said: “Carlos Sainz was the ambassador. So we need to criticise Carlos Sainz.”
Rosberg’s criticism was aimed at the Madring, which on Sunday staged a grand prix debut every bit as soporific as Baku’s. With one crucial difference: F1’s first race in Azerbaijan may not have been particularly exciting from a sporting perspective. But at least it looked spectacular on television, with the iconic section through the old town and the dramatic backdrop of a city skyline whose wealth seems to carry the scent of oil and gas.
The TV broadcast from Madrid occasionally treated us to drone or helicopter shots of what is unquestionably one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. But whenever the circuit itself came into focus, it had all the charm of a “concrete channel”, as Alexander Wurz observed in his role as pundit for Austrian broadcaster ORF.
The chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association offered some gentle criticism of the Madring project when he said, among other things: “Am I in Australia now, am I in Valencia, am I here in Madrid, where am I? Or in Jeddah? These street circuits always look the same. That means I’m not representing my host city in such a cool way. There’s quite a lot you could do here.”
Carlos Sainz, Williams
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
The big difference is that while F1 circuits in places such as Baku or Singapore were built right through the heart of the city, the Madring sits on Madrid’s exhibition grounds. Probably because, in a European democracy, routing a Grand Prix through the middle of a historic city centre is a little more complicated and bureaucratic than it might be in an Asian autocracy.
It doesn’t help that the race itself hardly had anyone on the edge of their seat. The Madring combines the abrasive anti-charm of its Valencia predecessor with a layout that makes overtaking virtually impossible. Monaco for the poor, one might sneer.
Hardly anyone, incidentally, had the courage to say so openly. It is remarkable how disciplined F1 team principals have become when it comes to avoiding bad-mouthing a new product. Before Liberty Media turned the series into a stock-market proposition, things might have been rather different.
Still, blaming Sainz for all of this, as Rosberg did because of his role as an official ambassador, is unfair. Other people are responsible for the circuit design. And nor can Sainz do much about the fact that his home city’s exhibition grounds possess, well, all the appeal of an exhibition centre.
What he can be blamed for, however, is his PlayStation-like move at the start. Sainz got away brilliantly, picking off three rivals on the run towards Turn 1. Once there, he tried to dispatch the next two in the finest tradition of the enthusiastic amateur gamer – only to slide, right-front locked, into Yuki Tsunoda’s VCARB instead. The gamers among us would probably have quit after a start like that and simply tried again. Tough luck when reality doesn’t offer the same play.
Sainz later talked down that lunge as a “small contact with Tsunoda that damaged my floor” will raise a smile from anyone who takes another look at his onboard footage.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing, Carlos Sainz, Williams
Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images
He did eventually receive a five second penalty later in the race, albeit for a different incident involving fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso. Alonso raged over the radio: “Yeah, he squeezed me into the wall, man. The start, he crashed into two people. Now squeezed me to the wall on breaking.” And all Sainz could come up with in response to the borderline incident was: “I think he complained on the radio so he managed to get me a penalty like always.”
Ultimately, neither Spaniard played any meaningful role in their home grand prix. Sainz eventually retired because he saw little point in continuing to toil away with so little downforce. “Hopefully this is the last year here in Madrid that I’m fighting for P16 and from next year onwards, I can fight for something more,” he said.
That optimism is probably not shared by many. Sainz has just extended his Williams contract, and however hard he tries to sell that decision under the banner of believing in the project’s long-term potential, the truth is this: had he received an offer from Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren or Red Bull, he would of course have taken it without batting an eyelid.
Viewed with a touch of cynicism, Sainz’s faith in Williams rests primarily on the fact that he didn’t have any better options anyway. It’s just not the sort of thing he could have inserted as his quote in the Williams press release announcing his contract extension.
At 32, and with spells at Toro Rosso, Renault, McLaren and most recently Ferrari behind him, the golden years of his Formula 1 career are probably already in the rear-view mirror. In an era in which young guns such as Kimi Antonelli are coming through, it is difficult to imagine a team principal with a winning car one day deciding to bring Sainz back in from the wilderness and give him another shot at becoming world champion.
Written down like that, it sounds brutally harsh. But it does not necessarily mean that the Spaniard’s career should be considered a failure.
Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari, 1st position, lifts the trophy in celebration
Photo by: John Toscano / Motorsport Images
Sainz has been racing in F1 since 2015, has won four grands prix and earned millions driving for legendary teams such as McLaren and Ferrari. In his first season at Toro Rosso, he was a match for a certain Max Verstappen, and over the years he built a reputation not merely for having a quick right foot, but also for possessing the intelligence and foresight of a successful businessman.
But when it comes to winning a Formula 1 world championship, the sober assessment is that it probably isn’t going to happen. Not because he occasionally has a Sunday blackout like the one in Madrid yesterday, but because the biggest teams no longer want him, and because this writer simply lacks the imagination to see how Williams is going to turn into a championship proposition over the next few years.
In hindsight, perhaps joining Audi rather than Williams would have been the smarter move, given how desperately then-Sauber team principal Andreas Seidl wanted him. Audi may not be much further ahead as things stand in 2026. But the odds of making a breakthrough with a works team are probably a fraction better than they are with Williams.
Sainz and his father, having somehow overlooked Lewis Hamilton in their calculations during the driver-market poker game, secretly hoped that a door might yet open at Red Bull or even Mercedes. But even back then, Toto Wolff preferred to take a chance on the relatively unknown quantity that was Antonelli rather than the experienced Sainz. And Verstappen ultimately stayed exactly where he was.
In the end, it wasn’t Audi but Williams – and quite possibly the beginning of the final chapter of Sainz’s F1 career. He may well spend another few years scrapping around in the midfield. It seems rather less likely that there is much more than that still to come.
Perhaps he would be well advised to put his talent to use somewhere it can be showcased to better effect. At an endurance classic such as Le Mans, for example, or in the “Green Hell” at the Nurburgring. There, at some point in the future, Sainz might even find himself competing against Verstappen and Antonelli again. At the very highest level – the kind befitting a driver of his calibre.
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