Sunday, 18 May 2025
- Race: P8, 63 laps

• Carlos Sainz worked hard to finish eighth in Imola, below the rhythm that he had shown throughout the weekend, but still a solid effort in a race where strategy played a crucial role.
• The Williams race driver started from sixth place, but he followed his team’s strategy, and this led to an early stop that ultimately proved to be a worse decision than the one made by his rivals.
• He was even dropped out of points for a while following a Virtual Safety-Car, which enabled those cars that had extended their opening stints to do their pit-stop without losing too much time.
• A Safety-Car and a really solid pace from Carlos enabled him to fight back all the way to eighth, including some defensive driving in the closing stages on very used tyres.

QUOTES:
“Obviously I’m disappointed right now after another weekend where we had good pace and I felt really good all weekend, but for one reason or the other we don’t seem to catch a break on Sundays. It hurts to miss a top 5 finish on a day that we were quicker than Mercedes and Ferrari. In hindsight, stopping early and then the VSC compromised our result. We need to keep making steps forward on communicating better during the race and I know better days will come, I have no doubt about it. We keep pushing team! On to Monaco!".

COMING UP:
Monaco GP, Circuit de Monaco – 23-25 May 2025