Damon Hill would be ‘surprised’ if Carlos Sainz made key Alex Albon demand in his Williams contract

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Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon look set to be one of the strongest driver pairings in Formula 1 when they team up together at Williams in 2025.

Team principal James Vowles will be delighted with his work behind the scenes in the paddock but knows his team now need to build a car capable of keeping two drivers with aspirations of winning championships happy.

Williams appeared to beat several of their rivals on the grid to securing Carlos Sainz’s signature after months of negotiations up and down the paddock.

Sainz losing his seat at Ferrari came as a surprise considering Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes contract was supposed to run until the end of 2025 but set off a chain reaction of driver confirmations and movements that still haven’t ended.

It put the Spanish driver in a powerful position in negotiations knowing he was set to receive several offers.

Speaking on the F1 Nation Podcast, former F1 world champion Damon Hill shared his thoughts on Sainz’s move to one of his former teams.

Hill won the 1996 championship with Williams but the team are in a very different position now compared to where they were in the pecking order nearly 30 years ago.

READ MORE: Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz’s life outside F1 from full name, girlfriend and height

Damon Hill thinks Carlos Sainz wouldn’t have made number-one demand in Williams contract

He was asked about the deal Williams would have agreed to convince Sainz to sign and while he expects it would have been a ‘big financial investment’, there’s one demand he thinks he would have steered clear of.

Alex Albon has been the team leader at Williams since his arrival, having the upper hand on Nicholas Latifi and Logan Sargeant.

However, Sainz arrives off the back of winning with Ferrari and challenging for podium finishes more often than not.

Hill still believes that while statistically Sainz has had a stronger F1 career, he wouldn’t have asked Williams to name him as the team’s number-one driver.

Instead, he’ll simply want to be on a level footing with the Thai driver heading into next season.

READ MORE: Williams driver Alex Albon’s life outside F1 from net worth, girlfriend to parents

Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz to race equally at Williams

Asked about the 29-year-old’s move to Williams, Hill said: “Okay, they’ve obviously must have taken a big financial investment to get him.

“But I don’t think he’ll come into the team presuming or wanting to be treated as the number one.

“I don’t see that as part of his personality. I think he’ll want fair and equal, nothing less than whatever the other bloke’s getting.

“But I doubt whether he’ll want to have superiority over Alex. I don’t think that would sit well with him. I’d be surprised if that’s in the contract.

“For example, Ayrton Senna and Alan Prost, they only ever said in their contract that they’ll get not less than equal equipment to their teammate.”

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Williams Racing from team principal to Mercedes relationship

James Vowles watched Carlos Sainz closely for years before Williams move

Carlos Sainz will hope he doesn’t need a clause in his contract to convince Williams boss Vowles that he’s his strongest driver next year.

Albon is a formidable racer but it’s been hard to gauge just how quick he is based on the past few seasons with Latifi never up to the required level to compete in F1 and Sargeant still very new to the sport.

Vowles has been scouting Sainz for years and will hope that the work he’s put in over recent months to convince him that he’s heading to the right team will pay off.

It’s unlikely that Sainz and Albon will be fighting at the front of the grid during their first year together.

However, the 2026 regulation changes offer every team fresh hope and Albon has already admitted that having Mercedes power units could give Williams an advantage.