While the communications hiccup at Ferrari made the headlines on Sunday after the Miami Grand Prix race, another scene of tensions went unnoticed on the side of Williams F1. Alex Albon has indeed exceeded Carlos Sainz at a time when the team wanted to freeze their positions, but the Thai defends himself by highlighting bad timing.
“It is most likely at the precise moment of this message that I exceeded it” said Albon. “I think that if we had stayed together a little longer, I would have been told [de garder ma position]but, during this time, we were still free to run. I think it was just a delay between the two cars. “
Sainz has annoyed himself on the radio at the end of the race saying “that’s not how I run”, and James Vowles, his director, wanted to answer him personally by telling him that he was “All right”advocating in passing “un engagement clair”.
Sainz then returned to the course of this instruction and his non-compliance, and thinks that Albon could have respected it: “The team told us that we were going to freeze the positions, then … I don’t know if he understood the message or not, but basically, he doubled.”
What annoys Spanish is not having been able to defend yourself: “No, for me, it is only if I am told on the radio that I will not be attacked and that we will attack together, if I am exceeded, I seem stupid because I feel helpless.”
“You play the nice. In the same way that I played the nice to Djeddah, you make yourself double and you seem completely stupid. But that’s how we talk about it, I am sure that we will get out of it as a team and that we will go ahead.”
Despite a disappointing ninth place, Sainz welcomed the rhythm of the Williams FW47 in Miami, and a solid race: “We had a very high pace on my side of the garage. I think I had a little trouble in the first two laps.”
“I thought the incident of turn 3 had caused damage, so I took my time and I had a few clashes. I think it decentralized me a little. But once I took the rate of the race, we were very fast. If you look at the rate of the race, we have proven that we were strong.”
For his part, Albon finished fifth and admits that her team did not understand how she managed to find herself in front of Ferrari and at Mercedes: “I think that this weekend surprised us, for sure. We talked about it with each debriefing since the start of the weekend: why are we good this weekend?”
“This is not a question mark, but to know what, on this circuit, we really agree. And I think what we have understood is that in general, there are no turns that we do not like, let’s say it like that. From the first round of the free, the car was well placed and we were able to progress quickly, which is very important in a weekend of sprint.”
