Formula 1 star Carlos Sainz is ushering Williams into a new era with skills honed by some of Ferrari’s oldest lessons.

Enzo Ferrari once quipped, ‘Most things can be said in a few lines’, and the most recent driver to depart his F1 team knows that all too well.

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It was during a short phone call that Sainz was handed the crushing news that he was being replaced at the Scuderia by Lewis Hamilton.

However, it is equally brief exchanges from which the Spaniard has made such a positive impact at Williams since his public debut in the backmarker.

During December’s post-season test in Abu Dhabi, Sainz took less than an hour to top the timesheets – eventually finishing second overall behind former Ferrari pal Charles Leclerc after clocking in 146 laps in his new machinery.

During an exclusive interview with talkSPORT, even team principal James Vowles was taken aback by how quickly Sainz proved his worth.

He said: “So first of all, Abu Dhabi, the rate he got up to speed was mind-blowing to me. It was really just a handful of laps before he was second on the timesheets and and held it there all day.

“His feedback is more concise than I expected really brilliant, sort of very good at distilling information in a way that you can understand concisely and then find in the data later as well as a result of it.

“He has the ability with just a few words to bring our team to absolute celebration. So I knew bits of them, but it’s good to see all pull together.”

The bits Vowles did know stemmed from a highly publicised push to land Sainz once opportunities to find a home at another front-running F1 team became thin on the ground.

The 30-year-old was considered by Mercedes, who were reeling from Hamilton’s surprise exit, only for the Silver Arrows to opt to accelerate the pathway of their teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli.

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Red Bull meanwhile had already renewed Sergio Perez‘s contract and by the time that decision was reversed, Sainz was unavailable.

Following months of speculation over where he might land, the smooth operator agreed a deal to be the face of Williams’s rebuilding project.

Williams finished a lowly P9 in the Constructors’ Championship and haven’t boasted a driver in their prime with the quality of Sainz, who was the only non-Red Bull driver to deliver a race win in 2023, for decades.

The fallen motorsport giant have been a Frankenstein of young talent destined for greater things (Nico Rosberg, George Russell, and Valtteri Bottas), veteran racers in the twilight of their F1 careers (Felipe Massa and Rubens Barrichello) or flops (Nicholas Latifi and Logan Sargeant) since their 90s heyday.

Williams’ one and only Grand Prix victory in the past 21 years fittingly came in Sainz’s home country Spain – courtesy of Pastor Maldonado’s stunning drive at the Barcelona circuit in 2012.

When asked afterwards if Venezuelan was only in the team because of money, founder Frank Williams said: “Yeah, he was to some extent. I’m not denying that. But if we thought he’d been a w*****, he wouldn’t have got in the team no matter how much money he had.”

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That was a mentality shared by current team principal Vowles, who has described Sainz’s arrival as signalling the dawn of a new era.

When asked by talkSPORT if the intention was to emulate a certain global megastar in having a successful era, a laughing Vowles added: “That’s brilliant. I have never been compared or Williams compared to Taylor Swift before but I’ll take it.

“It’s an era because bringing on [sponsors] Atlassian and the change of name is a representation for me that we’re not the same Williams as we were a few years ago.

“This is a fundamental change. We have two drivers that are the best for me in the sport that are leaders that will bring us forward.

“We have commercial partners, not sponsors, partners that want us to be successful and we have everything by our side to do so and Atlassian is a huge representation of that and I have some of the best engineers and otherwise on the grid joining me today.

“That’s a complete change from where we were 12 and 24 months ago – And so I think era is the right way of describing it.

“We want to win. We’re hungry for it. We’ve got the finances. We got the tools that are starting to be developed but not fully developed yet. We got the drivers.

“So it’s our pathway and I look forward to seeing the results.”

However, while Sainz’s red era is now over, the man himself has admitted it might take until 2026 to write his name in Williams folklore.

True to form, he articulated that sentiment in just a few lines…

During his own separate exclusive interview with talkSPORT, the four-time race winner said: “For sure we’re going to try to maximise this year, but I think the main goal for Williams stands in the opportunity that 2026 brings.

“This is a year where we need to learn as much as possible, grow as much as possible to be ready for next year.”