Freshly empowered Carlos Sainz blasts F1 testing in fiery tirade

Carlos Sainz has hit out at Formula 1 for their testing schedule, suggesting that there should be more opportunities for drivers to get a feel for their new cars.

Ahead of the 2025 season, Sainz has taken on two new roles, first as a driver with Williams following his departure from Ferrari, and second as a newly-appointed director of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA).

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Sainz, who was displaced at Ferrari by Lewis Hamilton's stunning switch from Mercedes, is stepping into Sebastian Vettel's old role with the GPDA, and will work alongside chairman George Russell.

Now, Sainz has questioned F1's pre-season testing rules, with teams and drivers getting just three days in 2025 to refine their setups and get acclimatised with the new machinery.

Sainz's testing concerns

Sainz was the 'champion' of testing in that he set the fastest time across the three days, in somewhat of a surprise for a Williams team expected to be struggling down the F1 pecking order in 2025.

With a supremely talented driver duo of Sainz and Alex Albon, Williams are hoping that 2026 could be the year for them to make real progress, particularly with new regulations sweeping into the sport.

Due to the regulation changes - the biggest the sport has seen since 2014 - more testing dates have been revealed for 2026 to give teams longer to prepare for the season, but Sainz has argued that it still hasn't gone far enough.

"I think F1, if I’m honest, could do a bit of an effort in trying to do a better job in how we go testing," he told media at Bahrain pre-season testing.

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"In the end, you have a lot of teams spending infinite amounts of money in simulators. You have drivers flying to the UK from Monaco to go to the simulator, and I don’t understand why we get three days of testing, when all that money could be invested into, I don’t know, eight days of testing.

"I’m not asking for too much - eight, 10 days, where every team picks their places to test. It’s nice to have a collective test, I think this should stay, but my proposal would be to have put in the budget cap the number of days.

"Put in the budget cap the simulator also, and see where the teams want to spend their money. If it’s in the sim or it’s in 10 testing days, rookies would benefit, and I think F1 teams would benefit, because even though the simulators are good, they are not as good as some of the engineers or people tend to believe they are.

"So, I would always choose testing, and for these guys also, than going to a simulator."

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