BREAKING NEWS Austrian Grand Prix delayed after Carlos Sainz's Williams car catches fire in Spielberg
Carlos Sainz 's Williams caught fire before the start of the Austrian Grand Prix, delaying the action by 10 minutes.
The Spaniard complained about his brakes before smoke started coming out of the back of his car moments later.
Marshals came scampering over immediately and doused the flames – he was lucky to be at the pit entrance close to assistance.
Sainz, who was due to start 19th, remained inside the cockpit and was wheeled into his garage, his race over before it had begun with Lando Norris on pole with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc behind him.
'Game over, Carlos, jump out,' said his race engineer Gaetan Jego.
Beforehand, Sainz had stalled on the grid as the formation lap began and was then jump-started by marshals.
His despairing Williams boss James Vowles put his head in his hands on the pit wall.
Sainz has had an underwhelming 2025 season and has not yet placed higher than eighth in any race, picking up points at just six Grand Prix so far.
This after he came fifth in the 2024 driver's standings, having finished on the podium nine times, including wins in Melbourne and Mexico City.
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Friday, June 13: Parade day With no running scheduled on Friday, drivers can try and rest ahead of the gruelling weekend ahead. But there's the small matter of the drivers' parade to attend in town, a four-hour event during which teams parade through Le Mans on streets lined by thousands of fans – and this year it occurs in intense heat as temperatures reach 32 Celsius. 'Friday is kind of the day you would want to have off, but ends up being the parade day, which takes up a good chunk of the day,' says Chadwick. 'It's an incredible experience but it's a long part of the day. It really brings it all to life and it's a huge part of the weekend.' Chadwick doesn't get back to the track until nearly 8pm, where she completes more media interviews in the Genesis Magma Racing suite before heading for dinner, and unveils her new helmet that has been designed by one young member of the Exxon Mobil 1 Teen Engineering and Tech Centre. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jamie Chadwick (@jamiechadwick) It's also a busy day for the team, as Genesis unveil plans for their Hypercar debut in 2026 that will be led by former F1 team principal Cyril Abiteboul and ex-tour-car specialist Giovanni Tarquini. Saturday, June 14: Race day Racing begins at midday with warm-up, but with only 15 minutes on the clock, the team turn to experienced hand Lotterer to check everything is as planned. Second place on the timesheets confirms the car is in good shape, as attention turns towards the start of the race and the near-three-hour build-up to the flag. Chadwick drives the car to the grid at exactly 1.10pm local time, two hours and 50 minutes before the race begins. She will not be the first in the car though – the honour of taking the start goes to Lotterer – so the main task is to keep energy expenditure and emotions in balance to avoid burning out early. That's easier said than done, however, when honorary starter Roger Federer, the 20-time tennis grand-slam champion, stops by the No 18 car to say hello on the grid. Lotterer makes steady progress on his triple stint – staying in the car on the same tyres for three pit cycles – before handing over to Chadwick inside the top 10. Chadwick jumps into the car at 5:46pm, although she has been on standby in the pits since 4:46pm in case Lotterer needs to change early. As the sun sets, Chadwick finds a groove and maintains a strong pace to remain in the hunt for the top 10, so much so that the team ask her whether she wants to stay in the car longer than planned. 'My engineer kept asking me, 'Are you good to do a quadruple?'. They asked that for two reasons: one is are the tyres good at that point? I don't think anyone had done a quadruple in the race yet. And then: two, physically, do you feel OK? And I felt fine physically, and with the tyres, it felt fine as well. So I was like, yeah, all good to go. 'It's one of those things that once you're in the car, it's almost easier because you're already warmed up, you're dialled in. It's a little bit tricky as I hadn't actually fuelled quite enough to be in the car for three hours, but you kind of deal with it, and you get on with it. It's almost harder if you're getting in and out the car constantly for single and double stints, because you have less time to rest. You finally switch off, and then you've got to get back in the car again. So I actually quite liked doing the quadruple stint.' Sunday, June 15: Double disaster Chadwick hands the car over to Jaubert for his first taste of Le Mans at 8.40pm and heads for dinner to unwind before retreating to her motorhome for a rest. 'My boyfriend, who has done 24-hour races before, said to me – because I was packing my bag on the morning of the race, and I was packing my pyjamas, my sleep mask, my pillow, I was getting everything ready to be nice and comfortable – he said, 'don't get too comfortable because when you get woken up you are going to not want to get out of bed. If you feel super comfortable, it's going to be horrible, just be a bit uncomfortable for 24 hours'. 'So the first stint of sleep I got, I didn't get too comfortable. I stayed in team kit and I slept, woke up, and I was absolutely fine. And then the second stint, I was like, 'right, OK, I'm going to get comfortable here. I'm going to have a proper night's sleep'. It was the hardest wake-up I've ever had. I did not want to get up. I was like, 'Oh, this is horrendous. Why am I doing this?' 'I had a good five minutes of being like, this is awful. And then you get on with it.' 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Chadwick hands the car over to Jaubert at 3:39am and heads to bed. Although Jaubert is in for a quadruple stint, it will not be long until she's back in the car as Lotterer will only double stint in the early hours, or so we think… Jaubert can only triple-stint before handing over to Lotterer. But as Chadwick wakes up and orders a coffee in the IDEC hospitality suite, disaster strikes. The right-rear wheel comes off at 4:39am after 206 laps, breaking the driveshaft in the process and ending any hope of getting the car back to the pits. Lotterer was at the wheel on his out-lap when the failure occurred on the Mulsanne Straight, a frightening section of the track for such a drama to happen. Cruelly, the same fate then strikes the sister No 28 car at 11:30am, nearly 20 hours and 308 laps into the race when the right-rear wheel also comes off on Job van Uitert's out-lap. From double-podium to double-retirement in the space of seven hours. 💔Another blow for @IDECSportRacing — this time it's the #28 with Van Uitert at the wheel, losing the right rear wheel. Any hope of a podium in LMP2 category is now gone. #LeMans24 #WEC #ELMS — 24 Hours of Le Mans (@24hoursoflemans) June 15, 2025 Back in the garage there are tears, and lots of them. Mechanics console each other as emotions and exhaustion get the better of them. Chadwick was watching the nightmare unfold on television. 'I was exhausted, because the adrenaline had come off, and at that point, you've really just had an hour of sleep,' says Chadwick, shortly before the demise of the No 28 car. 'So actually, I would have probably slept more throughout that day had we stayed in the race, because you focus on in the car, out the car, in the car, out the car – and when you're out the car, you're sleeping.' The dream, for this year at least, dies with the double DNF, and by midday Chadwick is on the road and heading for home, four hours before the race is due to finish. But she fully intends on being back. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jamie Chadwick (@jamiechadwick) 'It could have been a lot worse. Fortunately, no big issues with it in the grand scheme of things. But obviously, in terms of the result, not great,' admits Chadwick. 'There's always next year, at least. So hopefully better fortunes to come.'
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