Carlos Sainz is a Spanish Formula 1 driver who races for Williams Racing with the number 55. The son of a rallying legend, he is one of the most experienced drivers on the grid, a four-time Grand Prix winner who joined Williams in 2025 as part of James Vowles' rebuild. ¹

He was born Carlos Sainz Vazquez de Castro on 1 September 1994 in Madrid, the son of two-time World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz Sr., who took his titles in 1990 and 1992 and later won the Dakar Rally. Motorsport ran deep in the family, and the younger Sainz carried the famous surname into single-seaters rather than rallying. ¹

“0, where he won the Northern European Cup in 2011, before moving to Formula 3 and GP3 in 2013.”

Early career and the junior ladder

Sainz climbed the ranks through Formula BMW (2010) and Formula Renault 2.0, where he won the Northern European Cup in 2011, before moving to Formula 3 and GP3 in 2013. He capped his junior career by winning the Formula Renault 3.5 Series title in 2014 with DAMS, as a member of the Red Bull Junior Team, which he had joined in 2010 — the same programme that produced Max Verstappen, his future and frequent reference point. ¹

Formula 1 career

Sainz made his F1 debut with Toro Rosso in 2015 alongside Max Verstappen, qualifying inside the top ten and finishing ninth on his debut at the Australian Grand Prix, and he out-qualified the highly rated Verstappen across that rookie season. He stepped up to Renault mid-2017, staying through 2018, then moved to McLaren (2019–2020), where he took his first podiums at the 2019 Brazilian and 2020 Italian Grands Prix and finished a career-best sixth in the 2019 standings. A high-profile switch took him to Ferrari, where he raced from 2021 to 2024 as Charles Leclerc's teammate, beating Leclerc to fifth in the championship in his debut Maranello year with four podiums including second in Monaco. ¹

Signature wins

Sainz took his maiden victory and pole at the 2022 British Grand Prix, then won the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix — the only non-Red Bull victory of that dominant season, ending Red Bull's winning streak. In 2024 he added wins at the Australian Grand Prix, capitalising on Verstappen's retirement, and the Mexico City Grand Prix from pole. Through the end of 2025 he holds four wins, 29 podiums and six pole positions, marking him out as one of the most successful drivers of his generation not to have led a championship campaign. ¹

Move to Williams

Displaced at Ferrari by the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, Sainz signed a two-year deal with Williams from 2025, a long-term bet on the team's upward trajectory rather than a comfortable seat elsewhere. It was framed as one of the boldest driver-market gambles of the era: trading a front-running car for a midfield rebuild on the strength of where Vowles' Williams might be in two or three years. ^{1 5}

The 2025 season

Sainz's first Williams year began badly: he failed to finish the opening lap in Australia, retired in Bahrain, and a mechanical problem stopped him from starting in Austria. But he delivered when it mattered. He qualified second and finished third at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Williams' first podium since 2021, holding off Andrea Kimi Antonelli. He added a sprint-race podium at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, surviving a chaotic first-corner melee to take third ahead of both Ferraris, then a second Grand Prix podium with third at the Qatar Grand Prix, keeping Lando Norris at bay over the closing laps to help secure fifth in the Constructors' Championship. He finished ninth in the Drivers' Championship with 64 points, out-qualified Albon 14–9 over the season, and became the first Williams driver in a decade to take multiple podiums in a single year. ^{2 3 4}

2026 season and current form

Sainz continues at Williams for 2026 alongside Alex Albon, the pairing reckoned the team's strongest in years as Williams enters the new regulation era. He brings front-running experience and the kind of detailed development feedback that is central to the team's push up the grid, having seen at close range how championship-winning teams operate. ⁶

Driving style and character

Sainz is regarded as a meticulous, racecraft-strong driver — a tenacious racer who runs the car on the edge yet thinks his way through a Grand Prix, calm under pressure and excellent at tyre management and wheel-to-wheel defence, as both his Baku and Qatar drives showed. He is articulate and a respected voice in the paddock, succeeding Sebastian Vettel as a director of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association in February 2025, and has business interests including a Madrid restaurant. ^{1 4}

Bottom line

A proven race winner who chose a rebuild project over a safe seat, Sainz repaid Williams' faith in 2025 with the podiums that defined the team's best season in years — and gives Vowles a front-running benchmark heading into 2026. ^{3 4}