CARLOS SAINZ REVEALS THREE-MONTH EXPERIMENT FUELLED STRONG WILLIAMS QATAR QUALIFYING
Carlos Sainz credits a long-term setup experiment for his P7 qualifying in Qatar. The Williams driver pushed the FW47's limits after learning from a poor Budapest race.
Williams’ Carlos Sainz shared that an experiment that took three months to pay off helped him perform well in the Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix qualifying.
In his first season racing with Williams, Sainz has shown his skill a few times. But the team based in Grove had some problems with its FW47 after the race in Hungary earlier this year.
After Sainz’s “very solid” qualifying performance, the team said they had been experimenting before the race at the Losail International Circuit.
Sainz gave credit to his team, who tried hard to turn flashes of brilliance into steady speed, which let Sainz and Albon compete with their main rivals.
“Yes, we took another step forward in qualifying, and it seemed to move things in a good way,” Sainz told Sky Sports F1.
“Overall, I'm just happy with how the weekend is going so far. We've been steady, got a point in the sprint, and now we're in a better spot for qualifying, in the top seven going into the race.”
Sainz’s good result was another success with Williams. The qualifying performance was based on Sainz’s ability to push as hard as he could.
After qualifying, Sainz thought he had reached the FW47's limit, with a few laps that showed how confident he was with the new setup they were testing.
“I did three good laps in qualifying. I hit 20.2 in Q2, and I felt like I just couldn’t go any faster than that. It felt like that was the most the car could do,” Sainz told the media, including Motorsport Week.
“In Q3, even with the plastic scare and some damage to the car that had to be fixed, I don’t know if I had damage still. But after that issue, I still managed to hit 20.2 and get P7, so I’ll take it. We’re in a good spot.”
What was the Sainz-Williams Qatar experiment?
The 31-year-old said after qualifying that the idea for his Qatar setup came months earlier. After a tough time in Budapest, Sainz insisted that the team could improve. Sainz told his team that the “off-weekend” should be a chance to learn instead of just trying to get better quickly.
“Yes, I’ve been pushing since Budapest,” Sainz said.
“We had a bad weekend at this kind of track corner, so I said, let’s use this year to learn and try something in Qatar, because we expected to struggle in Qatar. It should be a tough weekend for us.”
Instead of avoiding a track that was known for showing weaknesses, Sainz accepted the challenge. Sainz brought his ideas from simulator testing, and the team added other ideas.
“So let’s put a plan together and test it,” he said.
“I had some ideas in the simulator that I wanted to try. The team had other ideas, so we put them all together, went to the simulator, tested the car, and that gave us what we thought could be a good starting point for the weekend to give it a shot.”
From Friday’s practice session, the progress was obvious. Sainz said that the new experiment not only gave them a good qualifying performance but also helped them learn more about the FW47.
“And it was working well right away this weekend, which has given us a good sense of what’s going on, good learning, and confidence. The team needs to do these kinds of tests and see them work.”
IMMEDIATE CANCELATION: PIRELLI CALLS OFF BAHRAIN TIRE TEST AS MISSILE STRIKES HIT MANAMA
F1 personnel are being evacuated from Manama after an Iranian missile strike hit just 30km from the Sakhir circuit during Pirelli testing.
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Pirelli just called off its scheduled two-day wet tyre test at the Bahrain International Circuit because of rising tensions in the Middle East.
The company pulled the plug for security reasons, especially after an Iranian missile strike hit nearby Manama. That’s only about 30 kilometres from the track.
Things escalated fast. President Donald Trump announced “major combat operations in Iran” had started, and missiles hit a US naval base in Bahrain in retaliation. The strike landed in the Juffair area of Manama, not far from where F1 teams and staff were staying.
With all this happening, Pirelli decided to cancel its plans at Sakhir and evacuate its personnel as soon as possible. McLaren and Mercedes had both supplied mule cars for this test, which was supposed to run for two days.
Pirelli told PlanetF1.com, “The two days of development tests for wet-weather compounds, scheduled for today and tomorrow at the Bahrain International Circuit, have been cancelled for security reasons following the evolving international situation. All Pirelli personnel currently in Manama are safe in their hotels. The company are working to ensure their safety and arrange their return to Italy and the UK as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, the FIA and Formula One Management are watching the situation closely. The Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prixes are both coming up in mid-April, so the stakes are high. With all the uncertainty, paddock staff are already looking for new travel routes to next weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, since a lot of flights usually go through the Gulf.
For now, both Middle Eastern races are still on the calendar. The sport’s governing bodies are keeping a close eye as everything unfolds.
Formula One Management told the media, “Our next three races are in Australia, China, and Japan, not in the Middle East, and those aren’t for a few weeks. As always, we’re keeping a close watch on situations like this and working with the relevant authorities.”
BEYOND THE TOP THREE: WHY OSCAR PIASTRI IS JAMES HINCHCLIFFE’S BIGGEST 2026 SNUB
James Hinchcliffe has revealed his top three drivers for the 2026 F1 season, and 2025 standout Oscar Piastri didn't make the cut.
James Hinchcliffe isn’t picking Oscar Piastri for his top three drivers in F1’s 2026 season, even though he’s backing Piastri’s McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, to be right up there.
Last year, Piastri almost grabbed the drivers’ championship for the first time. He had a pretty solid lead, 34 points ahead of Norris and 104 over Verstappen, with just nine races to go. But things took a bad turn late in the season. He slipped down to third, while Norris took the title and Verstappen jumped to second. Both McLaren drivers finished the year with seven Grand Prix wins each, but in the end, Piastri was 13 points behind Norris, who only edged out Verstappen by two points.
Now, with the big regulation changes coming for 2026, Hinchcliffe thinks Norris, Verstappen, and George Russell from Mercedes are in the best spot to take advantage. In his eyes, Piastri is probably fighting for fourth in his fourth F1 season.
Hinchcliffe is especially confident about Russell. Mercedes is convinced they’ll have the upper hand with their new engine in 2026, thanks to F1’s big changes to the power units. The electric side of the equation jumps from 20% to nearly 50%, and the MGU-H is gone for good.
Since McLaren gets its engines from Mercedes, Hinchcliffe figures that’ll help Norris stay in the title fight. But he still can’t ignore Verstappen; he’s proven he belongs in any championship conversation.
Hinchcliffe put it this way to F1’s official website: “2026 is shaping up to be one of the wildest, most open seasons we’ve seen. With all these rule changes, teams need to nail the car, the engine suppliers have to get it right, and the drivers have to pretty much relearn how to get the best out of the car. Mercedes looks strong again, so I’m putting Russell in my top three. Norris is on the list too; he comes in with a champion’s mindset and that Mercedes power. And with how tricky the new energy management is, I just have to include Verstappen. He always seems to have that extra brainpower when he’s driving.”
Now, don’t count Piastri out just because he stumbled at the end of last season. That tough finish in 2025 could be exactly what pushes him to come back fighting in 2026. He’s had the winter to hit reset and work through it, so he shouldn’t be dragging any of last year’s baggage into the new season.
Hinchcliffe isn’t the only one pointing out that the new 2026 engine rules might play to Verstappen’s strengths. Drivers will have a lot more to juggle with all that extra electric power, and Verstappen already showed he’s got a knack for it in testing. He was the first to push the new Red Bull Powertrains unit with a high-revving style in Bahrain, squeezing out extra energy. He even used lower gears in corners to recover more, even when it made the car sketchy to handle.
Still, Piastri has his supporters. Franz Tost, the ex-Toro Rosso boss, thinks Piastri is ready to go toe-to-toe with Verstappen, especially after what he learned last year. Piastri handled the heat pretty well when he was fighting Norris for the 2025 title, at least at first. But things started to unravel after McLaren told him to give second place back to Norris in Italy. After that, the mistakes piled up: crashes in qualifying and the race in Azerbaijan, plus trouble in the US Sprint.
So yeah, Hinchcliffe is leaving Piastri out of his top three, but there’s still plenty of reason to believe the Australian could bounce back and make some noise in 2026.
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