"Quite a shock" - Carlos Sainz concedes Williams' heavy F1 deficit in Barcelona

Carlos Sainz conceded that Friday at the Formula 1 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix was ‘one of the toughest I can remember’ after Williams’ “key weaknesses” were exposed.

The Spaniard ended Friday in 14th place, five positions clear of team-mate Alex Albon, four-tenths off the top 10.

But the problems facing Williams became increasingly evident on the long runs, with Sainz revealing the extent of the challenge for the remainder of the weekend.

“To be honest, we were expecting a tough Friday in Barcelona, especially with these hot and windy track conditions,” he said.

“It was one of the toughest Fridays I can remember. Leave aside the reliability issues, we were struggling a lot for pace, and this track is exposing the main key weaknesses of this car.

“We can get thereabouts in the fight for Q1, Q2, but then we are really far [away].

“Unfortunately, as soon as we got out of those slow-speed tracks, we were back to reality today.”

While high degradation was experienced by all teams – Pirelli bringing tyres one step softer than was the case in 2025 – Williams struggled more than most.

Having missed FP1 to allow rookie Luke Browning some track time, something that did not happen due to a problem with the car, Alex Albon found life even tougher on Friday afternoon, languishing in P19 and even asking the team if it wanted to persist with the running at one point.

Sainz added: “The debrief is all about trying to improve the long run. I think that we can admit that in the short run, we are three or four tenths away from Q3, and that is more or less where we expected to be.

“But on the long run, when we start degging, we are one second off the midfield, so it is back to where we were in China, Suzuka, or Australia, which is quite a shock to all of us.

“We need to really have a look at this long-run pace and see what we can do. But I fear it is something pretty big.”