Carlos Sainz believes he has “work t꧒o do” to extract the full potential of Williams’ 20♏25 Formula 1 car on soft tyres and secure a Q3 berth in qualifying.

Sainz made a strong start to his maiden F1 weekend w🤡ith Williams by posting the second-fastest time in opening practice for the Australian Grand Prix, but he dropped back to 11th in the more-representative FP2 session on Friday afternoon.

The Spaniard’s best time of 1m17.302s left him over eight tenths off the pace set by his former Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, while m🌜ore worryingly he ended up behind midfield rivals Yuki Tsunoda, Isack Hadjar (both Racing Bulls), Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) and Lanꦡce Stroll (Aston Martin).

While the 30-🌠year-old was happy with his overall performance in pract🧜ice, he feels it is crucial for him to improve his pace over a single lap on the red-marked soft compound.

He explained that he had already identifi🌌ed this area🍬 as a weak point during pre-season testing in Bahrain last month.

“In FP2, we didn't manage to find performance on softs, which is something we need to look into going into tomorrow as q🐟uali obviously on softs is going to be the main focus,” he told the official F1 website.

“S♊o if we manage to extract some potential on soft tyres we could be competitive. The field is extremely tight, VCARB was doing some very last laps a𓃲lso - a bit out of nowhere. 

He added: “It's what I said in an interview in the Bahrain test, we have to unlock the potentia💫l of th🎉e soft tyre, it's the key about this car.

“It's what I don't know yet ho🐽w to do, and today proves it. I was very quick on mediums, and also very c🐽ompetitive in FP1.

“But as soon as everyone turned up in FP2 and I went t꧅o find the lap times on softs, I clearly struggled to find lap times on that compound. 

“Tomorrow we will have four or five sets in quali, hopefully that will give me a chance to u🥂nlock it. but in that sense this is where [there is] all t༺he work to do.”

Sainz was the fastest midfield driver over long runs on mediu♔m tyres, but there was a clear gulf in performance betwe🅰en Williams and F1’s big four teams - McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Sainz joined Williams in 2025 after four seasons at Ferrari du♓ring which he scored four grand prix victories and as such is having 🦩to accept his new reality at the British outfit.

“Also, [on] high-fuel you can see there is quite a cl♛ear step from ourselves and maybe Ferraris and McLarens, and maybe Mercedes and Red Bull, but hopefully we are not too far and we can keep fight🐎ing in the midfield.

“Like I said, they can do some very competitive lap times and it can be tricky. ༒Long run, less happy, soft [tyre], less happy, but 🐼in all a very positive day.”