Carlos Sainz Agrees With Fernando Alonso: Top F1 Teams’ Upgrade Pace Doesn’t Add Up
· Yahoo Sports
Carlos Sainz has backed Fernando Alonso‘s growing frustration over how Formula 1‘s biggest teams keep arriving at circuits with armfuls of new parts – despite a cost cap that was supposed to make that kind of relentless development impossible, or at least balanced across the grid.
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The two Spanish drivers crossed paths in the Austrian Grand Prix paddock recently, and Sainz revealed the conversation ran for around 20 minutes.
“I ran into Fernando one day in the paddock and we talked for a good 20 minutes, catching up a bit, and well, he’s in a situation a bit similar to mine, which is not ideal, complicated,” Sainz said. Both men are watching rivals pull away while their own teams wait on major upgrade packages that haven’t arrived yet.
Alonso’s position is at least somewhat strategic. Aston Martin, now operating under the technical direction of Adrian Newey, has deliberately held back from the incremental update cycle and is saving its resources for one substantial package expected around the summer break. But that choice was made partly because, as Alonso put it, “apparently, there is no money to bring upgrades, unlimited upgrades like the other teams do.” The implication being that some teams are finding money that shouldn’t, under the cap, exist.
The Budget Cap Math Isn’t Adding Up for the Midfield
“I agree with Fernando,” the Williams driver said. “The midfield teams are surprised by the amount of updates that the top teams are bringing,” he said, before pushing the point further: “I have the feeling that either the top teams are leaving a lot of leeway in the budget cap, or there’s clearly something financial that we’re not doing quite right.”
That’s a carefully worded accusation. Nobody is pointing fingers at specific teams – Red Bull was hit with a penalty after breaching the 2021 cap, and all ten teams cleared their 2024 audits cleanly – but the suspicion that creative accounting or affiliated-company arrangements are softening the cap’s impact isn’t new, and it clearly hasn’t gone away.
For context, the 2026 cost cap sits at $215 million, a significant jump from $140.4 million in 2025, driven largely by the complexity of the new hybrid power units. Red Bull arrived in Austria with a seven-part upgrade package. Ferrari brought similar levels of package to Barcelona. These aren’t minor tweaks.
Williams is feeling the gap more acutely than most. Sainz arrived at the team with genuine expectations of carrying on from the fifth-place constructors’ finish that earned him a Williams contract in the first place – but the FW48 showed up to pre-season testing overweight, and Sainz believes its aero deficit would persist even at the minimum weight limit of 768kg. Through seven races, the team has scored just 11 points. “It’s been a massive – I won’t call it shock, but not even a wake-up call because we knew it, but a realization that we are very far from where we should be,” he told Motorsport.com.