Williams’ poor 2026 campaign “has nothing to do with” team principal James Vowles’ recent criticism of Formula 1’s cost cap, says Carlos Sainz Jnr.

Vowles recently claimed the team faces a “cost cap trap” where it cannot pay for the improvements its infrastructure needs without taking money away from car development. Sainz, who is a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, agrees this is a problem which F1 should tackle.

“When James says something as clear as that, it’s not a political battle, it is something that, for sure, 20 years’ under-investment you cannot recover quickly within a budget cap,” said Sainz. “Because you’re basically attributing [part] of the budget cap, that is not being attributed to car development, in improving your infrastructure.

“It is definitely the case for us and for other teams that are in the same trajectory and same path as us.”

However Sainz does not believe that is the reason why the team has suffered a much less competitive season than last year. “I think the underperformance of this year has nothing to do with that,” he said.

“We completely missed the new set of regulations and we got it really wrong with this year’s concept of the car and aerodynamics and the timing of it,” he explained.

“But if you want Williams to catch up quicker, or Williams or other teams with under-investment for many years to catch up quicker, we need allowance from the budget cap to be able to invest on it. So it’s simple.

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“I don’t see it’s very complicated, it’s whether the sport is ready or not to change up the regulation in order for that to happen.”

Williams has scored 12 points so far this season. At the same point last year it had 86.

The team introduced a significant upgrade package in Baku, where Sainz scored their first point for nine rounds, but he said it has not transformed their season.

“Definitely we made a step forward thanks to it,” he said. “I think you saw it in Baku.

“I think in Malaysia, it was a track that we were never going to be competitive on, but relatively, if we wouldn’t have had the update, we would have definitely been slower for sure. So the package is working, but as predicted, it’s not enough to really get us anywhere near safe, points-scoring positions.

“So we know that until the end of the year, we’re going to be scrapping to get into Q2 and potentially get a few points.”

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