Carlos Sainz believes that Aston Martin has gained an advantage over Williams after the latest updates. At the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix of Formula 1, Fernando Alonso managed to score points with an alternative strategy, while Sainz’s team had another difficult weekend, also marked by contact between their two drivers.
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“We are more or less where we expected, which is at the back. At the moment, we are only faster than Cadillac. You saw the Astons, in race pace, they are on another level now. We can’t fight them. We can’t fight anyone, actually,” said the Spaniard. “If you look at the last five races, that’s where we’ve been in the last five races, so that’s where we are. I had a very difficult weekend on my side, with some inconsistency in the parts, which didn’t allow me to set up the car properly for the race.”
Sainz also commented on the incident with Alexander Albon, which occurred when the two were no longer fighting for important positions: “At the end of the race, Alex and I were just having fun, and unfortunately I made that mistake where I was caught off guard with a front lock-up at Turn 1, on the bump. But honestly, it’s not like we were fighting for much,” he said about the incident.
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Despite the difficulties, Sainz believes that the problems faced can help Williams find answers for the upcoming stages. “We have to learn from this, as there will be some interesting data points to analyze as a team with the difficulties I had, since we will certainly be able to draw conclusions from them and this will probably help us understand better in the future.”
Williams currently occupies ninth place in the standings, with 11 points scored so far this year. The team has not finished in the top ten since the Monaco Grand Prix.
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