"More or less where it was": Carlos Sainz comments on Ferrari's struggles in 2025

Carlos Sainz has opened up on Ferrari's troubled 2025 Formula 1 season. The SF-25 has not proved to be at the level to fight for the world championship. Sainz has asserted that the car is still pretty much where it was in the 2024 (SF-24) season.

The now-Williams driver Sainz drove for Ferrari from 2021 onwards until the end of the 2024 season. He was replaced by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, ahead of the ongoing campaign.

2025 is 15 rounds down, and the Fred Vasseur-led team is in second place in the Constructors' Championship with 260 points. However, the gap to leaders, McLaren, is huge, as the latter is sitting handsomely at the top with 584 points.

The situation is similar in the Drivers' Championship as well, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in P5 and P6, respectively. In line with how much the team has struggled to fight for titles this year, Carlos Sainz has made comparisons with the previous year's challenger and said:

"Compared to Red Bull and Mercedes, it is more or less where it was last year. The problem is that McLaren has made a huge step, for me it is one of the strongest teams ever seen in F1."

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@williamssainz

Q: Surprised to see Ferrari so far behind in the World Championship? Carlos: ”Compared to Red Bull and Mercedes, it is more or less where it was last year. The problem is that McLaren has made a huge step, for me it is one of the strongest teams ever seen in F1.”

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc came home with zero points from last week's Dutch Grand Prix race weekend. Both endured DNFs following their separate incidents at the Zandvoort racing circuit. Williams driver Carlos Sainz secured a P13 finish.

F1 pundit believes Ferrari is 'missing Carlos Sainz'

While Carlos Sainz has given his thoughts on Ferrari's SF-25, the 1997 F1 world champion, Jacques Villeneuve (now an F1 pundit), believed that the Italian outfit was missing its former driver.

Villeneuve gave a fascinating take during the Dutch Grand Prix race weekend:

"Maybe they're missing Carlos Sainz at Ferrari. Ultimately, we're seeing who was working on the team. And we kept saying, every time Carlos joins a team, the team goes up, every time he leaves it, that team goes down. And that happened again. Williams has been going up, Ferrari has been going down."

Sainz has been competing in the pinnacle of motorsport since 2015. Over the years, he has competed for teams like Toro Rosso (Racing Bulls), Renault (Alpine), McLaren, Ferrari, and the Williams F1 (current) team.

It is going to be fascinating to see how fruitful Sainz's stint with Williams will eventually pan out. 2025 has not gone his way, as after 15 rounds, he is in 17th place in the drivers' standings with 16 points. Sainz's teammate Alex Albon is in eighth with 64 points.