Revealed: Six other Williams F1 driver hires as unexpected as Carlos Sainz

The news that Carlos Sainz will join Williams in 2025 and beyond may not be shocking now that we’ve seen the silly season play out — but it would have been quite the surprise just a few months ago.

But this isn’t the first time that the team founded by Sir Frank Williams has taken a chance on signing a driver no one had thought would be signed by the British marque. These are just some of those drivers.

Ralf Schumacher

Ralf Schumacher was signed to a multi-year deal with the Jordan team — but the brother of Michael made a bold move heading into the 1999 season. After Schumacher was issued with team orders to prevent him from passing teammate Damon Hill, his elder brother bought out his Jordan contract, allowing Ralf to move to Williams, where he remained for five years.

David Coulthard

Some Formula 1 promotions take place under tragic circumstances, and that’s just what happened with David Coulthard’s Williams debut.

Though he was the team’s official test driver and could have expected a promotion up to F1 in the future, Coulthard was called in early to fill the team’s empty seat after its primary driver, Ayrton Senna, was killed at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

Ayrton Senna

Ayrton Senna’s move from McLaren to Williams was massively shocking to the F1 community at the time — but in reality, Senna had longed to race for McLaren’s rival for years.

The only thing holding him up was the fact that his arch rival Alain Prost was racing for Williams, and Prost refused to take Senna on as a teammate again. When Prost finally retired, Senna was able to make the drastic leap for the 1994 season, though it was a move that would prove fatal.

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Alain Prost

When Alain Prost was fired from Ferrari in 1991, he was handsomely paid by the team to take a sabbatical and not race for another. Determined to return to racing for 1993, Prost tested a Ligier but ultimately turned down an offer to race for the French team. However, when he heard that Nigel Mansell and Williams were parting ways, Prost was quick to snatch the empty seat.

Nelson Piquet

As the 1985 F1 season progressed, Nelson Piquet began to feel that he was being taken advantage of by the Brabham team — but his deep ties with the mechanics, designers, and engineers made it difficult for the Brazilian to leave, even if he knew he had to.

Initially linked to McLaren, Piquet refused an offer from Ron Dennis thanks almost wholly to the fact that he didn’t want to have to engage in a massive slate of press responsibilities. Williams, then, slid in to offer Piquet a contract with a salary three times that of the fee he’d been paid at Brabham. At that point, it was a simple switch.

Nigel Mansell

Piquet would join Nigel Mansell at Williams — and Mansell had his own unexpected signing at the team.

At the end of 1984, Nigel Mansell was effectively pushed out of his team when Lotus signed two drivers — and he wasn’t one of them. What made Mansell’s ultimate decision to join Williams so shocking was the fact that he had initially turned down the offer to race for the team, considering instead a move to Arrows!

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