Carlos Sainz has called for “accountability” from Williams’ leadership after the team failed to get even one car to the chequered flag at the Austrian Grand Prix.
It meant Williams has scored just one point in the last three Grand Prix weekends, which have included three retirements and a DNS.
Williams is going through a ‘tough time’ at present
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Williams is in the midst of a poor run of form at present, with Alex Albon retiring from three races on the trot, two of his DNFs caused by power unit issues.
On Sainz’s side of the garage, he managed just one top 10 result in that period; tenth in Canada, while in Austria he didn’t take the start.
Lining up on the grid for the formation lap, the Spaniard’s FW47 was stuck in first gear, necessitating an aborted start.
But while Sainz was able to get going and made his way to the pit lane, his rear brakes caught fire, which put an end to his afternoon.
Although Williams remains fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, Racing Bulls in sixth has outscored it in three of the last four races to close the gap to 19 points.
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“We were going through a tough period in a tough time for the team, and we need to understand why, because clearly it’s costing us a lot of points,” Sainz told the media, including PlanetF1.com.
“We have a decent car. I mean, we haven’t upgraded it much but we have an upgrade coming soon. We just need to get better executing weekends.
“You were asking me before if it’s related to focusing on next year, and it’s not.
“It should be completely unrelated, the way you execute a race weekend and reliability has nothing to do with putting the focus on next year. So we should use these issues we’re having this year and all of these problems to learn as a team to execute better weekends.”
The four-time Grand Prix winner urged Williams’ leadership, including the drivers, to respond to the challenge and get the season back on track.
“All of the big leaders of the team, we need to take responsibility and leadership,” he said.
“We all need to take also accountability in what we are doing wrong as a team. This is one aspect of the team that I fully back, and I fully trust that we are capable of doing that.
“Now we need to test ourselves to see how quick as a team we can respond to these issues and come back stronger because accountability, I’m sure there’s going to be, responsibility and leadership, I’m sure there’s going to be.
“So it’s just a matter of testing times, how quick you can recover from all these issues, and it will put us to the test.”
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