FIA issue Carlos Sainz verdict after British Grand Prix incident
Carlos Sainz joined Williams from Ferrari at the start of F1 2025
Williams driver Carlos Sainz has been warned by the FIA after an incident during FP2 at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Sainz suffered a spin at the exit of Luffield corner in the early stages of the second free practice session on Friday, narrowly missing the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.
Carlos Sainz warned by FIA over British GP incident
After a short time sitting stationary, Sainz got going again directly in front of the approaching Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg.
Sainz was left under investigation for ‘driving a car in a manner potentially dangerous to other drivers’ with the Williams driver handed a warning after a visit to the stewards’ room.
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The stewards’ verdict read: “The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 55 (Carlos Sainz), the team representative and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, team radio and in-car video evidence.
“Car 55 spun out at the exit of Turn 7 and was stopped, perpendicular to the track, between turns 7 and 8.
“The driver of Car 55 drove straight across the track, went off the track on the other side and thereafter rejoined the track.
“While he was doing so, Car 27 was approaching on his right.
“From examining the onboard footage and after hearing the driver, it was apparent that the driver of Car 55 did not look right to see if there was a car coming towards him.
“The driver informed us that he was not able to look to the right because of the FHR device and the height of the headrest. He also said that he misjudged where exactly he was on the track and expected cars to have space to pass behind him.
“Car 55 moving forward resulted in Car 27 having to change direction by moving to the left to avoid a collision with Car 55.
“Because the section of the track was double yellow flagged the danger to Car 27 was mitigated somewhat.
“However, that did not obviate the need for a driver to ensure that he did not pose a danger to other drivers, including by not moving if he was at all unsure.
“We did not think that the current situation resulted in a danger to other drivers, particularly given the double yellow flags, however, it did have the potential to be dangerous.
“We accordingly administered a warning to the driver of Car 55.”
Sainz has had a muted start to his Williams career since joining the team from Ferrari at the start of the F1 2025 season.
He trails team-mate Alex Albon by a massive 29 points having been limited to just six points finishes across the first 11 races of the year.
After a promising run of four consecutive points finishes between the Saudi Arabian and Monaco grands prix, Sainz has struggled for form over recent weeks.
Last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix marked Sainz’s third consecutive Q1 elimination, following recent disappointments in Spain and Canada.
The 30-year-old failed to start the race at the Red Bull Ring after an issue on the formation lap resulted in a delayed start.
It was the first DNS of his career after previously failing to take the start at the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix, when he was driving for McLaren, and the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix where he was representing Ferrari.
More on Carlos Sainz and Williams from PlanetF1.com
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Thursday at Silverstone, Sainz confirmed that Williams is working to get to the bottom of its reliability problems after a cluster of costly issues.
He said: “Obviously, there’s a certain level of concern within the team of having so many reliability issues, three [retirements] in a row for Alex and the brake issue with me.
“The brake [issue] was a lot of things coming together that we understand now why it happened and it shouldn’t happen again.
“The issue on Alex’s car that has happened a few in a row now is something that obviously we are trying to solve and trying to understand and for that we are doing everything we can to understand it this weekend, because it’s a very strange issue that only happens on race day.
“We only see it happening on race day, so you cannot simulate it in certain at certain points of the weekend even though we try our best.
“But we’ll keep working on it.”
Asked about the atmosphere in the Williams garage this week as the team seek a fix, he added: “Very hectic, for sure, for the whole factory, for us as drivers and all the engineers involved.
“We’re trying our best to get on top of all these issues and situations.
“I think one thing that is keeping us calm and encouraged is that the speed in the car is there.
“I’m very confident we could have won the midfield battle in Austria, even starting almost from the back, with the pace we had.
“Every race we are actually very quick and we have a very competitive car, but we just need to obviously put start putting things together and [stop] making these mistakes as a team, which I think it happen.”
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