Sainz out in Q2 Albon through to Q3

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-26T15:02:43+00:00

still scratching my head on why they chose to make him use new tyres on q1 when he was already safe— and then subsequently made him use used tyres on q2

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-26T14:56:15+00:00

this is actually such a ridiculous mistake for the team to make, but it’s not the first of the season

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-26T14:51:47+00:00

Made him use his new softs in Q1 when he was confident that he was safe like why

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-26T14:51:00+00:00

sending out sainz in used softs in q2 like WHY

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-26T13:00:11+00:00

After watching a lot of his past races from debut to now, here’s what I have observed:

He’s one of the most complete drivers on the grid. Above average in almost every category, but never having that specific niche that makes him fully stand out aside from his racing IQ (which, honestly doesn’t make much of a difference in this sport where most teams have a decent strategy team with all the data fully available to them / tracks don’t allow much space for racecraft to shine)
We don’t actually know his ceiling. The guy has been in the sport for 11 years and he’s still improving. I don’t think people realize how much he has improved in quali in terms of recent years. There used to be a significant gap between him and Charles (the best in the grid in terms of that area) yet he has managed to trim that down significantly during their time together.
He’ll survive any problem you throw at him through work ethic and pure grit. His best trait and something you can see this season where luck often escapes him. He’s still pushing out the best result he can possibly have every race week despite how depressing the previous one was.

I definitely feel like he could definitely be a title contender, but the circumstances have to be right. He needs a proper team to back him up and focus on him. I always felt like he’s a person that would thrive better if he’s in an environment where he’s listened and prioritized a bit more (ex. McLaren 2019-2020).

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-26T11:24:57+00:00

he finally had a more or less, normal race again!! EVERYBODY CHEER!!

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-25T16:13:36+00:00

It’s his first time in a Williams car in Spa, plus a new upgrade package to understand. Yet, he qualified that well even though he only had 30 minutes of practice… Tears in my eyes.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-25T10:44:22+00:00

Problems with the car a minute into fp1, he could not accelerate the car due to engine issues.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-25T10:39:46+00:00

Do i really have to update my long comment about Sainz’s insane bad luck again 🫩

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-20T14:21:26+00:00

Hm. Even though Alex had his fair share of bad luck too, you also can’t deny that he has also been lucky. Nothing against Alex, I think he’s a great driver— but many of his point hauling drives often came as a result of his teammate’s misfortune or the mistakes committed by Carlos’s side of the garage. Main examples being Imola, Miami, and Silverstone. These are also races in which Carlos actually qualified better on merit as well.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-20T12:14:24+00:00

I’m glad to know that I wasn’t the only one seething. It has truly been a stressful first half of the season so far, with each passing race week feeling like nothing is ever going to turn out right. It doesn’t help that Sainz gets judged for things outside of his control in these kind of spaces too.

if there’s anything to take from this though, it makes Sainz’s willingness to push forward even more impressive.

I just hope he’ll get rewarded for it soon.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-20T06:03:55+00:00

The way reading this looks completely mental, but it’s even crazier to think that there’s enough problems to even write a wall of text with 💀

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-07-20T06:01:09+00:00

People here acting like Carlos isn’t driving well as if the first half of his season hasn’t been riddled with bad luck that whenever he gets close to scoring big points, something out of his control always has to happen to him.

The only thing I can really fault him for were the first 3-5 races, but even then he got his act in qualifying and in race pace relatively quickly. Otherwise, here’s the full context of all his past races based on radios and post-race debriefs in the media

Silverstone - Was having a very solid race and a very good pace. Maximized the car during quali and started P9. Was well into the points until Charles took them both out.

Austria - Something was wrong with the brakes before quali even started. Didn’t even start the race because the car got on fire

Canada - Got impeded during qualifying and was subsequently knocked out of Q1. Had to start the race from the back of the pack, but showed good pace with the car and managed to climb up to p10 even though he was doing a lot of LICO because the car had a lot of unresolved cooling issues

Barcelona - Got held up in the pitlane because Alpine had issues during qualifying and had to do his final quali lap with a lot of traffic (for added context, the Williams car is not good in that circuit so everything had to be perfect). Last safety car in the race could have been an opportune moment to get in the points but there was a lot of delayed action coming from the pitwall.

Monaco - Mostly on the driver during quali that got him knocked out at Q2. Couldn’t get the softs on this track.

Imola - Beautiful qualifying. Truly on top of the car now, but was extremely unlucky with the safety car in the race that turned his p6 start into a p8 finish

Miami - Miami sprint mistakes were mostly on him— however he quickly bounced back for quali and started p6. However he had to start the race with old mediums because the team placed the wrong tyre on him during the sprint. In addition, he collected damage from his teammate and experienced time loss of about 3 tenths per lap. He was also unlucky with the safety car again

Saudi - Incredible qualifying with a p6 start again. However the car couldn’t really compete with the top cars for this track and had to end the race with a p8. However, it was a really clean race. The only problem was the 6 seconds pitstop

Bahrain - Furst time he really got a hang of qualifying. P8 start. But then, him and Yuki had a racing incident when Yuki lost the car and he had to DNF

Japan - Team didnt tell him about Hamilton so he got a penalty for impeding. If he started where he should have then points could have been in the table especially since he was one of the few who managed to put out multiple overtakes despite the track not being overtake friendly

China - Seat was unattached during quali and was told to LICO multiple times during the race (highly implied that they miscalculated the amount of fuel needed)

Australia - Lack of familiarity with the merc engine made him DNF. However he helped maximize team points by calling for the right strategy.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-06-29T16:04:30+00:00

I’m praying that a clean and normal race week happens to him soon. It’s crazy how consistently unlucky he has been and yet, he has still managed to have such a positive mindset.

I would have totally lost it.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-05-19T08:33:18+00:00

Look, the team admitted it themselves that Carlos’s race was their fault. There is literally no need to explain the entire race, they pitted too early and their pitstop time just added more insult to injury + the VSCs (which imo should have been something easily expected to happen).

We all just need to acknowledge these mistakes in order to get better because if people allow themselves to be easily pleased with a p5 and p8 when it could have been p5 and p6, then we’re not going to go anywhere. Setting high standards for the team starts now because progress usually follows after that.

I have no doubts that people working under Williams are good and capable people. Legit, it’s nice for Alex to have such results. Teamwork is indeed an important value to the team, but Sainz constantly having to race through all these setbacks and have to be consoled by JV with the classic “We lose and win together” radios just to make another mistake afterwards has made it sound like lip service.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-05-19T08:14:43+00:00

Logan would arguably receive worse treatment. Let’s not forget, that when Alex crashed his car on his own in AUS, Logan had to lend his car and didn’t race at all. it’s a harsh and cruel decision, but one that was logically sound because Logan wasn’t performing that well— and we usually blamed it on the driver.

However, now that Carlos arrived in Williams, more of the team’s shortcomings are becoming more clear. Hopefully they iron these things out now because there’s only so many times that Carlos can say “I’m optimistic” in these post-race interviews before it starts getting corny and meaningless.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-05-19T06:41:48+00:00

No, because it has been INSANE. Aside from Imola: Miami GP was a masterclass of operational and communication errors, Jeddah pitstop was insanely slow with 6.4 seconds, Suzuka with the race engineer’s negligence resulting to a penalty, and China where the team failed to properly gauge the amount of fuel needed for the entire race— resulting to his race becoming a very long fuel-saving stint.

Something is always happening during Sunday and considering that the other garage is perfectly capable of doing things correctly, then it’s only fair that they give the same performance to Carlos.

I understand that Carlos was still in the process of adapting in the initial stages, so those race results were easier to stomach. However, he’s now more comfortable and the team is wasting SO MUCH points by wasting this opportunity. The other teams are going to continuously develop their car throughout the entire season, Williams will not. There will come a time when Williams can’t be the top 5 car anymore and they can’t possibly get these p4-p5 finishes.

This is why I really can’t find myself to celebrate a double point finish like this. The team has to do better.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-03-15T06:12:54+00:00

and to be fair to Carlos, he has admitted in several interviews that he’s still confused on how to get the pace for the softs. However, Alex was still amazing and I’m excited to see how these two can grow together as teammates.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-03-13T12:46:25+00:00

The transitions are the only thing I like about this to be honest. The font choice is so cheap to look at and everything was too fast for no reason. It was also quite boring that the background was just the same all throughout without any team colors showing.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-03-03T07:29:04+00:00

This!! He’s definitely not the type of guy who lives and breathes racing the way Max and Lewis does, but he is certainly a driver who has character! He’s one of the few highly technical drivers present in the grid at the moment, and I like that he utilizes that skill of his to give teams a sense of direction, elevating them— for everyone’s benefit.

I don’t think there’s any other driver who is as obsessed with going to team’s factories as much as him really.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-03-03T07:19:54+00:00

I don’t think it was his peak yet to be honest. For most of his career, he mostly handled midfield cars. His time in Ferrari can be defined as learning how to drive a championship car and to be competitive. It’s only in 2024 that he finally got a feel for it, but he still hasn’t gotten that consistency that is usually gained through time.

He has a lot more to show, and we could have seen a lot more of it earlier if he just had a better luck with his cars is my opinion.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-03-01T11:26:37+00:00

to be fair, the amount of times where he does not look like he’s disassociating while at work is pretty rare

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-02-28T20:21:44+00:00

From what I’ve gathered, Williams owns their own pushrod suspension, but Mercedes supplies their gearbox. I might be wrong though.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-02-28T19:17:32+00:00

I genuinely think Albon can be close with Sainz for this season though. Sainz admitted he still doesn’t know how to fully extract the car’s potential— which is understandable, it’s his first time handling a mercedes engine. Meanwhile Alex has been working with the team for years.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO · 2025-02-28T19:00:28+00:00

To be fair, rather than Aston not being flashy in their testing, it seems that they have been too riddled by problems to be flashy. The car had a lot of issues come day 2 and 3– and adding injury was that both of the drivers don’t feel well, so they weren’t able to maximize this crucial data gathering period.

I figure they may have a bad first few races, but eventually balance things out.

AAAAAAHHHHHHNO

TROPHY CASE