Contrary to the hype around Lewis Hamilton’s new stint at Ferrari, Carlos Sainz joining Williams has basically gone under the radar. Still, Sainz has a major role to play if the Grove-based outfit are to return among the frontrunners in the upcoming years.
The Spaniard will be closely working with team principal James Vowles to ensure Williams makes a significant step forward after the 2026 regulations reset. However, it won’t be as simple as it sounds, given where the iconic British outfit currently stands.
In 2025, Carlos Sainz will become the fourth driver in F1 history to have raced for McLaren, Ferrari & Williams in the series pic.twitter.com/2UO4zKRIO3
— Autosport (@autosport) July 30, 2024
With a handful of points and a P9 finish last season, Williams are not expecting a magical turnaround in their ultimate performance during Sainz’s first season in 2025, at least. Moreover, Sainz may not be able to pull off a miracle by rallying the troops around him like Michael Schumacher did at Ferrari during the late 1990s.
These are the thoughts of Karun Chandhok, who explained how much F1 has evolved since Schumacher’s time at Ferrari. “It’s a big challenge. Nowadays, it is different to the Schumacher days where Michael could have such a huge influence and brought that team of people around him and just dragged the whole thing,” Chandhok said in a podcast conversation with Evo India.
Chandhok also pointed out that Schumacher was able to bring in technical leaders like Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne to Ferrari because teams’ policies surrounding gardening leave were not as strict as they are today. This was a major move in bolstering Ferrari’s car development and its effects were evident in the later years when the Scuderia went on to win five consecutive Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles from 2000 to 2004.
Cut to 2025, Sainz and Vowles may not be able to do the same, given there are provisions by teams to enforce a gardening leave of 18 months on senior technical personnel leaving for another team.
While Chandhok acknowledged that Williams are investing a lot of money in their factory and infrastructure, they may not be able to pull off such a turnaround as Ferrari did for Schumacher by bringing in the technical talent in just three or four years.
How Schumacher was the talisman for Ferrari
Back in the mid-90s when Schumacher jumped ship from Benetton to Ferrari, Jean Todt was the team principal who was quite a visionary himself. His tuning with Schumacher was the strong foundation upon which the likes of Brawn, Byrne, and James Allison were able to get the best out of themselves to produce a dominant F1 challenger.
Besides helping the team hire these technical geniuses, Schumacher also ensured that he kept the team motivated as they weren’t getting the ideal results in his first four seasons with the team. From 1996 to 1999, the German driver often won races and was in championship contention, but lost out due to some or the other reason.
With Corinna Schumacher, Ross Brawn & his wife, Luca di Montezemolo, @marc_gene at @FOSGoodwood to celebrate 7-time @F1 World Champion @schumacher pic.twitter.com/QRCECSXhYf
— Jean Todt (@JeanTodt) July 7, 2019
Still, being the team’s leader, he kept everyone focused on their ultimate goal of bringing the championship trophy back to Maranello. Schumacher was famously known for being in touch with all his engineers and mechanics, even knowing about their families and other personal life details.
This bonding helped him create a closely-knit team of people who were willing to dominate the sport without complacency. After all, Ferrari winning both championships for five consecutive years is evidence of the culture Schumacher inculcated at the Scuderia.
