评论：萨因茨在威廉姆斯被浪费
《The 比赛》专栏作者埃德·斯特劳撰文指出，刚刚与威廉姆斯续约的卡洛斯·萨因茨正被浪费在F1中游车队的末尾，尽管他本赛季整体表现十分出色。
在一级方程式的后段默默耕耘，注定你只有在犯错时才会引起别人的注意。
问大多数车迷关于塞恩斯本赛季至今的表现，他们首先想到的往往是匈牙利大奖赛上，他在被套圈时撞上领先者皮亚斯特里的事故。然而那次失误虽然招致了应得的批评，却与他整体上表现出色的这个赛季并不相符。你甚至可以说，这次失误恰恰是那种让塞恩斯大放异彩的心态带来的意外后果。
他明年将继续留在威廉姆斯车队，部分原因是其他地方缺乏可信的机会，但他也有意识地今年绝不留下任何遗憾。这一部分是出于尽量挽回一些成绩的愿望，但更主要的动机是让自己的身价保持得尽可能高。
以平均速度来看，威廉姆斯的FW48是第三慢的赛车，在八月休赛期前的亨格罗林赛道上，它仅排在凯迪拉克之前——那是在阿斯顿·马丁进行重大空气动力学升级之后。
对于许多身处塞恩斯这种位置的车手来说，这本来会是一种严重损耗竞技状态的经历，毕竟他在法拉利时期已经习惯了在前排作战，而且外界原本预计威廉姆斯今年会更具竞争力。如果因此失去那份锋芒，没人会责怪他，这种事情在处境相似的车手身上也发生过。但他非常清楚，31岁的自己已没有资格松懈。他现在的表现将影响他在车手市场上的分量，甚至关系到2027年之后更长远的未来。
在匈牙利，皮亚斯特里曾讥讽塞恩斯"像争夺世界冠军一样跟费尔南多·阿隆索抢倒数第一"。这恰恰正是那种态度——从一辆有限的赛车里榨出全部潜力，为一切去争抢，哪怕毫无回报——正是这种态度让塞恩斯本赛季的表现如此令人印象深刻。
这并不能为他对待皮亚斯特里的做法开脱，而且这位澳大利亚人的评价也有一定道理：塞恩斯既是抱怨声最大的车手之一，同时也是被对手批评最多的车手之一。但这种态度通常能带来相对于赛车潜力而言堪称出色的成绩。
三个第九名，仅仅六个积分，就成绩而言是他一级方程式生涯最糟糕的一段。但根据我在每场比赛后编制、用于评估每位车手整个周末表现的车手排名来看，塞恩斯在2026年目前位列第五。
他经常把一辆排位赛第一阶段（Q1）水平的赛车带进排位赛的第二阶段，而且多次顶住了更快的赛车，其中最引人注目的是在中国站，他挡住了弗朗哥·科拉平托那辆延误进站的阿尔派，最终拿到第九名。如果把他的表现移植到一辆争前列的赛车上，他会获得铺天盖地的好评。甚至可以说，就他相对于赛车性能所取得的成绩而言，这可能是他在F1最好的一个赛季。
"我讨厌这么想，因为我现在排第16，"当《The 比赛》在匈牙利站威廉姆斯的房车里对他进行独家采访时提出这个说法，塞恩斯如此回答。"这是一项非常'相对'的运动，可我排位赛是第15、第16。你怎么能告诉车迷或读者这是你最好的赛季？这完全违背直觉。"
"但在F1里我们需要把赛车和驾驶分开来看。如果把赛车和驾驶分开比较，这是我表现最完整的赛季之一。是不是最好的？我可能把我在迈凯伦的几个赛季排在F1生涯最佳，然后是2024年的法拉利，2025年下半段的威廉姆斯，还有今年。"
他在14场排位赛中有10次进入了第二阶段（塞恩斯没有参加澳大利亚站的排位赛），而且只有两次在成绩上被队友亚历克斯·阿尔本压过（阿尔本的"新"威廉姆斯合同于周二官宣），而这两次差距都只有千分之几秒。他还交出了达到或接近威廉姆斯赛车能力上限的正赛成绩。
当被问到什么让他印象深刻时，塞恩斯的回答出人意料，尤其考虑到他作为一位以善于思考著称的车手这一当之无愧的名声。他谈论自己排位赛表现的方式，揭示了他技术中被低估的另一个部分。
"这是与我的工程师团队共同备战比赛周末的成果,"塞恩斯说。"我们在理解能量管理方面做得不错，围绕让我感到舒适来发展调校设定，并理解轮胎，以便在第一节排位赛结束的关键时刻做出单圈成绩。"
"我在第一节排位赛中一直相对较强，在排位赛早期做出非常好的单圈一直是我的强项之一。实际上我一直不喜欢排位赛用五套轮胎的规则，因为那样更像是打磨完善，而不是全力一搏去做出单圈。"
"但我们的工程师团队很出色，这是与他们共事的第二年，我们更了解彼此，知道我需要什么样的赛车、轮胎和能量管理。这是与车队共处第二年的典型过渡，你通常会快上0.1秒。"
谈到凭本能驾驶，必然需要进一步追问。塞恩斯对此给出了具体说明：他在车下所做的功课，正是为了让他坐进驾驶舱后能够按自己的意愿凭本能驾驶。简而言之，这让他更容易进入心流状态——任何运动员都是在那种状态下发挥出最佳水平，依靠的是潜意识的处理。
而这些下压力较低的赛车，需要像他这样擅长应对细微“微滑移”的车手才能发挥其最大潜力，似乎正好契合了他的优势。
“我在幕后是一个非常勤奋的人，但只要我戴上头盔、跳进赛车，我就完全依靠本能，在车里我不会想太多，除非是涉及策略，”塞恩斯说。
“我确实喜欢在脑子里保留一点策略方面的思考，但说到感受赛车和驾驶赛车，我非常凭直觉，而且我喜欢事先做好功课。我不知道今年这对我有没有帮助。在能量管理方面你需要下功夫，但其他一切我更多依靠本能。”
虽然塞恩斯是最擅长适应新赛车的车手之一或许并不令人意外，但值得记住的是，地面效应赛车并不合他的胃口。当法拉利队友夏尔·勒克莱尔从测试一开始就调整了自己的刹车风格时，塞恩斯却花了很长时间才让自己适应这些赛车。而且他从未觉得自己能够凭本能驾驶，始终对自己严格要求，才能发挥出赛车的最佳性能。
“我的应对方式就是按自然的方式去驾驶，”塞恩斯谈到'26赛季赛车和他的驾驶风格时说，“我从来没有自然地驾驶过地面效应赛车，我必须改变自己的驾驶方式去适应，并且在一些驾驶技术上保持自律。今年开始的时候，我说：‘一切从零开始，我要忘掉地面效应，回到尽可能自然的驾驶方式，看看这会把我带到什么水平。’
“在巴林进行了几次测试之后，然后是第一场比赛，我发现我的自然风格似乎给我带来了相当不错的速度水平，于是我说：‘好，从现在起，我要根据能量（指赛车能源管理系统）的要求去做，而不是按照调校或驾驶技术去做。’
“关于能量管理，他们说最低速度很重要，他们说重点是全力冲入弯、不用在乎出弯，但如果回顾过去，我一直是那种能把出弯做得很干净的车手，而且我不觉得因为这些新规而提前踩油门让我受到太大惩罚。这是一个有趣的问题，因为至少对我而言，我原以为自己会因此变慢，或者相对慢一些，但实际上我并没有特别感觉到这一点。”
塞恩斯将自己的适应新车的方式描述为"不去想太多"，并表示对它的"全面分析"可以等到赛季结束后再说。
当一切顺利时，这话很容易说。而对于那些正处于困境中的人来说，情况很可能恰恰相反，其中包括赛季前夺冠热门拉塞尔，或许还有塞恩斯在威廉姆斯的队友阿尔本。
在这个对威廉姆斯来说本就麻烦不断的赛季中，阿尔本遇到的困难超出了他应得的份额，但他的驾驶风格与这些赛车的契合度并不高。不过塞恩斯并不是在落井下石。
"亚历克斯今年有过一些表现非常、非常具有竞争力的比赛周末，但在排位赛中可能因为多种因素而没能发挥出来，这些因素是我们和赛车都难以应对的，包括赛车本身以及赛车一致性的问题，"塞恩斯说。
"也许有些周末他的状态差一些，但说实话我从不怀疑亚历克斯·阿尔本。我在每一个弯角、每一圈里，都有来自他的数据点，我总是在学习或努力改进。从来没有哪一圈他会慢超过十分之一秒或十分之二秒，我总是把他当作一个非常好的参照。"
"更重要的是，我相信随着在车队的第二个赛季，我已经逐渐适应了，甚至从去年下半年开始，我的表现就已经达到了一个高得多的水平，也就是我知道自己能够达到的水平。这需要时间。适应一支车队、和你的工程师磨合、熟悉调校以及你想做的一切，都需要时间。"
塞恩斯一直对2026年的赛车持批评态度，并且和一些对手一样，对能量部署有时显得随机性的问题感到担忧。本赛季早些时候，他形容这套规则"对一级方程式来说还不够好"，尽管这次变革可以说对他反而有利。
"如果你对这些赛车天生就快，你仍然可以克服这种随机性,"塞恩斯说。"我认为每个人都会遇到随机性，没有任何车手能完全避开它，但如果你具备底层速度，大多数时候在关键时刻你还是能跑出圈速的。
“我们都讨厌这种随机性，我们都讨厌在某些直道上突然慢上一两个十分之一秒，但如果你第一和第二计时段跑得很强，而且当前一圈状态不错，你仍然能通过那个排位赛阶段。”
“另外，我有一点感受是，今年车队之间的差距太大，车手已经很难靠自己的能力去改变什么。去年你进入第一节排位赛（Q1）时，你知道只要跑出一圈好成绩就能击败其他全部19名车手。今年很遗憾，你最多也许只能在一辆阿尔派或一辆奥迪或一辆哈斯失误时击败它们。因为车队之间的差距更大了，车手所能造成的影响变小了。”
这正是塞恩斯的表现一直被忽视的关键原因之一。在F1阵容的下游苦苦挣扎本身就是问题的一部分，而且即便是他那些出色的排位赛单圈，也很难让他排到比第八排更高的位置，因此很难产生影响力。当然，除非这种影响是指字面意义上的碰撞——比如在被套圈时撞上领跑者。
英文原文
Toiling in obscurity down the field in Formula 1 condemns you to the fate of only catching the eye when you make a mistake.
Ask most fans about Carlos Sainz's season so far and hitting race leader Oscar Piastri while being lapped in the Hungarian Grand Prix will leap to mind. Yet that blunder, which drew justified criticism, is incongruous with the rest of what has been an outstanding campaign. You can even argue that this blunder was an unintended consequence of the very mindset that has allowed Sainz to thrive.
He's staying at Williams next year, partly because of the lack of credible opportunities elsewhere, but he’s made a conscious effort to leave nothing on the table this year. Partly, this is motivated by the desire to salvage what results he can, but the primary impetus is keeping his stock as high as possible.
The Williams FW48 is, based on average pace, the third-slowest car and was ahead only of Cadillac at the Hungaroring before the August break after Aston Martin's major aerodynamic upgrade.
This would be a performance-sapping experience for many drivers in Sainz's position, given he became accustomed to running at the front during his Ferrari years and Williams was expected to be far more competitive this year. You wouldn't blame him for losing that edge, and it's happened before to drivers in his situation, but he's all-too-aware of the fact that, at 31, he can't afford to back off. What he's doing now will impact his strength in the driver market, even when it comes to the longer-term future beyond 2027.
Oscar Piastri slated Sainz for "fighting Fernando [Alonso] for last place like it was the world championship" in Hungary. This is exactly the approach, dragging everything out of a limited car and fighting for everything even if your reward is non-existent, that has made Sainz's campaign so impressive.
It doesn't excuse what he did to Piastri, and there is something to the Australian's characterisation of Sainz as one of the most vocal complainers yet also one of the most criticised by rivals, but this approach has usually yielded results that are, relative to the potential of the machinery, superb.
A trio of ninth places, and just six points, is the worst stretch of his F1 career in terms of results, but based on the driver rankings I compile after each race, which evaluate each driver's performance across the weekend, Sainz is fifth so far in 2026.
He’s often taken a Q1-level car into the second stage of qualifying, and on multiple occasions, notably when he kept Franco Colapinto's delayed Alpine behind on his way to ninth in China, he's held off faster machinery. Transplant his performances into frontrunning machinery and he would be getting rave reviews. You could even make a case that this might be his best season in F1 in terms of what he's achieved relative to the capabilities of the equipment.
"I hate thinking like that because I'm P16," Sainz tells The Race when this is put to him in an exclusive interview in the Williams motorhome in Hungary. "It's a very 'relative' sport, but I'm qualifying P15, P16. How can you tell a fan or a reader that's your best season? It's completely counterintuitive.
"But in F1 we need to isolate what is the car and what is the driving. If I isolate the car versus the driving, it's one of my most complete seasons. Is it the best? I rank probably my McLaren seasons as my best in F1, 2024 with Ferrari, the second half of Williams in '25, and this year."
He's reached the second stage of qualifying 10 times out of 14 (Sainz did not contest qualifying in Australia) and has only been outpaced twice by team-mate Alex Albon (whose "new" Williams deal was announced on Tuesday), on both occasions by thousandths of a second. He's also produced race results at or close to the ceiling of what a Williams can do.
Asking Sainz what stands out to him sends him in an unexpected direction, particularly within the context of his well-earned reputation as being a cerebral driver. The way he talks about his driving in qualifying in particular points to another underrated part of his skillset.
"It's the combination of race weekend preparation together with my engineering team," says Sainz. "We've done a good job on understanding the energy management, developing the set-up around trying to make me feel comfortable, and understanding the tyres to put the lap [in] when it matters at the end of Q1.
"I've always been relatively good in Q1, it's been always one of my strengths to do very good laps early in qualifying, I've actually never been a fan of five sets [of tyres] in quali, because it's perfecting rather than going all out and putting a lap [in].
"But it's a good engineering team, a second year with them and we're understanding each other better, knowing what I need from the car, from the tyres and from the energy management. It's a typical transition in a second year with a team, you normally become one tenth quicker."
The reference to driving on instinct inevitably demands a follow-up. Sainz puts meat on the bone by explaining that the work done out of the car is to allow him to drive as he wants on instinct once behind the wheel. In short, this makes it easier for him to get into the flow state where any athlete does their best work, relying on subconscious processing.
And these lower-downforce cars, which require a driver like him who is comfortable dealing with the tiny 'microslides' to get the most out of them, appear to have played to his strengths.
"I'm a very hard worker behind the scenes, but then as soon as I put my helmet on and I jump in the car, I rely purely on instincts and I don't think that much inside the car, unless it's for strategy," says Sainz.
"I do like keeping a thought for strategy, but when it comes to feeling the car and driving the car, I'm very instinctive and I like putting the work [in] beforehand. I don't know if that's helped me or not this year. With energy management you need to put in the work, but for everything else I rely more on instincts."
While it's perhaps no surprise that Sainz has been one of the best at adapting to the new cars, it's worth remembering that the ground-effect machines weren't to his liking. While Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc modified his braking style right from the start of testing, it took Sainz time to tune himself into them. And he never felt as if he was able to drive on instinct, keeping himself on a tight leash to get the best out of them.
"The way I've approached it is I'm just going to drive natural," says Sainz of the '26 cars and his style. "I never drove the ground-effect cars naturally, I had to change my driving to adapt and be disciplined with some of my driving techniques. When I started this year, I said, 'Clean sheet of paper, I'm going to forget the ground effect and I'm going to go back to driving as natural as I can do and see where this brings me'.
"After a couple of tests in Bahrain and then the first race, I saw my natural style seemed to give me quite a good level of speed and I said, 'OK, from here I'll do what the energy now is asking rather than the set-up or the driving technique'.
"With the energy, they say the minimum speed is important, they say pushing the entries and not caring about the exits [is important], but if I look back I've always been someone that gets good exits out of corners and I don't see I've been too penalised with these regs by going early on the throttle. It's an interesting question because, at least for me, I would have thought then I would be slow, or relatively slower because of that, and I haven't felt that in particular."
Sainz describes his approach to understanding dialling into the new machines as "not overthinking it", and that the "thorough analysis" of it can wait until the end of the season.
That's easy to say when things are going well. The opposite is likely true of those who are struggling, including pre-season championship favourite George Russell, and perhaps also Sainz's Williams team-mate, Albon.
Albon has run into more than his fair share of problems in an already-troubled season for Williams, but his style hasn't gelled so well with the cars. Not that Sainz is sticking the boot in.
"Alex has had weekends where he's been really, really competitive this year and then in qualifying maybe hasn't put it together because of multiple factors that we are struggling with, with the car and with the consistency of the car," says Sainz.
"Maybe there's been other weekends where he's been a bit more off, but honestly I wouldn't doubt Alex. In every corner I do, every lap I do, there are data points from him that I'm always copying or trying to improve. There's never been a lap that he's more than a tenth off or two tenths off and I'm always using him as a great reference.
"It's just more that I believe with a second year in the team I'm settling in and even by the second half of last year I was already performing at a much higher level and the level I know I can perform. It just takes time. It takes time to adapt to a team and to get into bed with your engineer, with the set-up, with everything you want to do."
Sainz has been critical of the 2026 cars, and shares the concerns of some of his rivals about the apparent randomness of deployment at times. Earlier in the season, he described the regulations as "not good enough for Formula 1", even though the change has arguably been to his advantage.
"If you're naturally quick with these cars you can still get away with the randomness," says Sainz. "I think everyone's getting randomness, no driver out there is not getting randomness, but if you have the underlying speed, most of the time when it matters you get the laptime out of it.
"We all hate the randomness, we all hate to be down one or two tenths on some straights suddenly, but if you're coming from a strong sector one and two you can still make it through that qualifying section if you are on a good lap.
"Also, one thing that I'm feeling is this year the gaps are too big to make a difference as a driver. Last year you would go into Q1 and you knew you could beat all the other 19 drivers with a good lap. This year, unfortunately, you can only beat maybe one Alpine or one Audi or one Haas if they get it wrong. Drivers are making less of a difference because the gaps are bigger between teams."
That's one of the key reasons why Sainz's performances have gone under the radar. Grafting in the lower reaches of the F1 field is part of the problem but, when even those outstanding qualifying laps rarely elevate him higher than the eighth row, it's hard to make an impact. Unless, of course, the impact is a literal one with the race leader while you're being lapped.
The Race ·
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