Zak Brown reveals talks with Carlos Sainz over F1 2025 team with bold prediction made

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown opened up on his advice to their former driver Carlos Sainz as he mulled over his F1 2025 options, predicting more victories to come.

Having known since pre-season that F1 2024 will be his last campaign with Ferrari, the team signing seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton for 2025, Sainz became a key player in the driver market, with a decision on his next team taking until the summer break to arrive.

Zak Brown told Carlos Sainz to find a ‘comfortable’ new team to ‘shine’

And Sainz ultimately would settle on Williams as his next project, agreeing a deal until at least the end of 2026 with the Grove outfit, carrying options to extend.

Sainz previously impressed at McLaren during his two seasons with the team from 2019-20, ahead of joining Ferrari, and Brown, speaking with DAZN , revealed that he talked to Sainz about the decision awaiting him, advising him to join a team where he felt he would be most comfortable and could display his talents.

Speaking before Sainz chose Williams, Brown said: “He’s definitely a friend of the family. Hope he lands in a good seat. He’s still young.

“I spoke with him about it and I said: ‘Your next contract, it’s not your last contract, so go somewhere where you feel comfortable, where you feel that you can shine and see how that team progresses.'”

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Williams very much has their sights set on the new regulatory era from F1 2026, believing this is when they can go a long way to improving their fortunes, having scored only four points so far this season.

The first year with Williams risks being a bit of a struggle for Sainz therefore, but Brown fully expects Sainz to add to his three grand prix wins down the line, whichever team that may be achieved with.

“But you know, seats open up quickly in this sport so I think that we haven’t seen the last of Carlos on the top step of Formula 1, that’s for sure,” Brown concluded.

After pulling off the major coup of securing Sainz’s signature, Williams team boss James Vowles opened up on the secret FW45 weight data which he revealed to Sainz, helping to seal the deal.

Asked on the F1 Nation podcast how he managed to convince Sainz to join Williams, Vowles replied: “I think it was a few things.

“I gave him quite accurate weight figures for where the car is overweight race by race, so he can go back and calculate from that where the car would have been.

“And for the world, it would have meant we were point scoring at pretty much every race, certainly at the beginning of the year.

“And that’s quite painful for me, but it’s also a sign of the performance added to the car.

“Weight is possible to remove and we are removing it. It’s very hard to add real tangible aerodynamic performance and weight is just a function.

“I’ve done it 100 times in my career – add 10 kilos, it’s about three-tenths; take off 10 kilos, it’s about three-tenths. There’s no point debating it, it does it every time. He knows that and he can see that.

“So first and foremost is he put [it all] together [and said]: ‘OK, this is where you are performance-wise’ – which allows him a clearer view of where the real performance is, of certain elements of things, and that’s very encouraging.”

Williams’ four points scored so far in F1 2024 leaves them down in P9 in the Constructors’ Championship .

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