Carlos Sainz "missed an incredible chance" after disappointing Australian GP crash

Carlos Sainz has revealed how he plans to improve his relationship with his new race engineer, Gaëtan Jego, after joining Williams in 2025.

The former Ferrari driver joined the Grove outfit after his four-year stint in Maranello came to an end when Lewis Hamilton chose to join the team. Sainz ultimately decided to sign with Williams for 2025 onwards to drive alongside Alex Albon.

Despite Albon securing 10 points for Williams with a fifth-place finish in the season-opener in Australia, Sainz crashed on the opening lap in the wet weather. While speaking to the media in China, the Spanish driver explained that he is going to replicate his crash in Melbourne to help improve his relationship with Jego.

When asked if he was experiencing a similar issue to Hamilton, who is getting used to communicating with his new Ferrari race engineer, Sainz explained:

"The only difference is that unfortunately for me, I didn't get to drive such a demanding race from a communications side in Australia, and I've missed that experience to build with my engineer.

"We were talking about it just now. It's like we need to review this race, and we need to go through it together as I was driving it because this is exactly the kind of race where I think I can make a difference as a driver if you help me read the situation well and we could have got a good result like in this case, Alex did.

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

"If we communicate well and we're gonna go through, back at base at some point, this race if I was driving it just to make sure we've actually raced the race because we've missed an incredible chance to build up on it. So, still, 23 left, so I still have plenty of them to come, but yes that one race where you have a massive learning curve."

Sainz now looks ahead to the second round of the 2025 F1 season: the Chinese Grand Prix. The race weekend in Shanghai will also feature the first sprint race of the year, meaning that he will only have one practice session to prepare for a jam-packed weekend of racing.