Williams have announced Carlos Sainz Jnr will join the team from next season on a multi-year contract.
The three-times grand prix winner, who has raced for Ferrari, McLaren, Renault and the team now known as RB, will race alongside Alexander Albon next season and into the new technical regulations era in 2026 and “beyond”.
The announcement ends months of speculation about Sainz’s future after his current team, Ferrari, announced that they had signed Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton to join them for 2025, leaving Sainz without a seat. Sainz had admitted he had been taking his time to decide which team to join for 2025, with reports suggesting that Sauber – who will become Audi in 2026 – and Alpine had also pursued his signature.
The confirmation of Williams’ driver line up for 2025 means that Logan Sargeant will no longer race for the Grove team beyond this season. However Williams have indicated that Sargeant will continue to race for them until the end of the current championship.
Sainz said that he was “very happy” to be joining Williams from the start of next season.
“It is no secret that this year’s driver market has been exceptionally complex for various reasons and that it has taken me some time to announce my decision,” Sainz said. “However, I am fully confident that Williams is the right place for me to continue my F1 journey and I am extremely proud of joining such a historic and successful team, where many of my childhood heroes drove in the past and made their mark on our sport.
“The ultimate goal of bringing Williams back to where it belongs, at the front of the grid, is a challenge that I embrace with excitement and positivity. I am convinced that this team has all the right ingredients to make history again and starting on January 1st I will give my absolute best to drive Williams forward alongside every single member of the team.”
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Williams team principal James Vowles says that his team will have “one of the most formidable driver line-ups on the grid” heading into 2025 and hailed the experience Albon and Sainz will bring into the major technical regulations changes in 18 months’ time.
“Carlos joining Williams is a strong statement of intent from both parties,” Vowles said. “Carlos has demonstrated time and again that he is one of the most talented drivers on the grid, with race-winning pedigree, and this underlines the upwards trajectory we are…
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