Williams made first approach to Sainz in Abu Dhabi last year

Williams has revealed it first approached Carlos Sainz about an F1 drive in Abu Dhabi last year, before anyone knew Lewis Hamilton would replace him.

Following months of intrigue about Sainz’s future, it was announced on Monday that he had agreed a deal that will commit him to Williams for at least the next two years.

It came after the Spaniard had courted offers from Sauber/Audi and Alpine, while he had also held out hope of Red Bull or Mercedes opening doors for him.

But the decision to commit to Williams comes after its team principal James Vowles said it had been clear for months that Sainz was his number one target, and that an approach had been made even before it became clear he would be leaving Ferrari at the end of this year.

“The conversation has been many months,” explained Vowles in a call with media on Tuesday.

“It hasn’t been weeks, of which you’ve been privy to some of it because it’s been a bit more public than I would normally do with a driver discussion, but it actually started way back in Abu Dhabi last year.”

While Sainz did not appear to be on the open market at the time, and many expected him to remain at Ferrari from 2025, Vowles said he approached him at the F1 finale because he felt he had a chance of winning him over.

“There’s only one driver I spoke to in Abu Dhabi last year, only one, and it was Carlos, just to be super clear,” he explained.

“I didn’t spread bet. I went for one driver that I thought would make the difference.”

Vowles believes that, off the back of his team finishing seventh in the constructors’ championship last year, Williams could make enough progress to convince Sainz to jump ship from Ferrari.

But those hopes fell short when Williams’ 2024 campaign started on the back foot due to its car being overweight.

“I thought, for complete transparency, that we wouldn’t have the weight on the car, and you don’t know the numbers, but if we would have been in a points-scoring position every weekend, I actually think it would have been a more difficult choice for him [to stay] if Ferrari was more on the rocks, and I didn’t know that it would be.

“My point was to position myself in the most sensible way possible for that. But performance drives everything. If you’re in the points you have a lot more phone calls than if you’re not.”

It was only when Hamilton’s Ferrari deal for 2025 was announced in February that Vowles…