Sainz 'baffled' by Williams struggles: "We need to analyse"

The Spaniard finished only 13th at the Shanghai International Circuit, although he was promoted to 10th and a single point after disqualifications for both Ferraris and Alpine's Pierre Gasly, and struggled to match team-mate Alex Albon as he battled excessive graining on his front left tyre.

That was an issue all drivers faced during the race, though Sainz's Williams seemed to struggle with more graining on his set of hard tyres compared to those around him.

While the disqualifications did get him off the mark for his new team, Sainz was downcast post-race and speaking before his top 10 finish was confirmed, he told media: "The pace wasn't there.

Sainz: "The pace was just not there"

"We did some setup changes that seemed to help the overall deg of the front tyre, but unfortunately on my side, the pace was just not there and I struggled with a lot of graining in the first stint, graining on the second stint - even on the hard, which we're supposed to be more resilient to it.

"So yeah, a lot of analysis will need to be done in the next few days because clearly I wasn't competitive, I wasn't fast and it's something that obviously baffles me because ever since I jumped into this car I've been really really quick. Abu Dhabi last year [in the post-season test], Bahrain test... but as soon as we came here for some reason all that pace went so we'll have a look at it.

Sainz crashed out early in the wet Australian Grand Prix which limited his time behind the wheel to learn more about his new machinery and asked about the importance of time in the car, he explained: "A sprint weekend never helps the learning because you obviously cannot test much. But my first race with the team... it was my first full race distance, which obviously I couldn't do in Melbourne, and I hope that at least we can get the learning.

"But my feeling is that there is something fundamental that I got wrong, or we got wrong, and we need to analyse."