Sainz believes ‘little steps’ beginning to add up as he continues Williams adaptation in Jeddah

Carlos Sainz believes he is beginning to make progress at Williams with “little steps” piling up as he went fifth fastest on Friday in Saudi Arabia.

Sainz has endured a slow start to the season after joining Williams from Ferrari in the winter months – crashing out in Australia and scoring only a single point form the opening four weekends.

But after showing improved pace in Bahrain, the Spaniard backed this up with a top-five placing in Friday’s Free Practice 2 around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, ending the day 0.675s behind pacesetter Lando Norris.

“It’s just little steps with trying to adapt my driving style a bit to the car, little steps with set-up, trying to get it into a better window,” he said. “It’s a bit my driving and the limitations that we have this year and we’re trying to make little steps.

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - APRIL 18: Carlos Sainz of Spain driving the (55) Williams FW47 Mercedes on — Sainz was mixing it in the top order during FP2

“Some things seemed to work, others didn’t. We did a decent lap on softs that put us quite high on the timesheets today. Let’s see if we can keep it up tomorrow. I hope so.”

He added: “I’m trying so many different things with my set-up and my driving that for sure, you see progress. Sometimes I try something but I go backwards and that then makes me go forwards, because I know which direction I don’t need to go in.

“The same applies to my driving. I try little things with my driving style and the switches in the car and sometimes I go backwards, but sometimes, it helps me go forwards. It’s an adaptation process and the time that I am giving myself to understand these things. I was warned it was going to take time and it is taking time, but when I get it, I’ll be there.”

Asked if Q3 was the “minimum” target for Saturday’s Qualifying session given his strong pace in the only representative session of the weekend, Sainz added: “I always target Q3 and points. This is the target for me and the team every weekend.

FP2 Highlights: 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

“So far, it has been hard to get because of our difficulties with my adaptation process and things not going our way, but hopefully this weekend is a good step.”

Alex Albon completed a positive session for Williams, setting the 10th fastest time, 0.953s off Norris but ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.

Conceding there remains work to do before Qualifying, Albon said: “We’re finding our feet a little bit. I was a bit happier with the car in FP1 than FP2. It got a little bit scrappy on the last set of soft tyres which we need to improve on what went wrong, and I think we still need to work a little bit on our long run pace.

“A bit of finetuning. It’s going to be close, as always, so every little bit helps.”