Williams explains the missed instructions between Sainz and Albon in Miami

Williams may have made his best weekend of the year in terms of points collected-and even the best since 2017-, the stable has left the Miami Grand Prix with a touch of bitterness on the side of Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard indeed explained after the test having received a message from his stable, according to which his teammate Alexander Albon, was not going to attack him, before seeing him exceed him.

“What bothers me is that if I am told on the radio that I will not be attacked, then we attack together so as not to be overtaken”had notably launched Sainz. “But you feel silly, helpless, because you play the right guy, like in Djeddah, and in the end you get doubled and you pass for a fool. But that’s it. We’ll talk about it.”

The British team actually talked about it and analyzed the situation. As part of the stable debriefing video, published after each GP, its director, James Vowles, returned to the reasons for this disagreement at length.

“A message was communicated to the two racing engineers”he explained. “Alex had a reliability problem and we had to get air [frais] in radiators. This message was communicated to the two engineers and the decision was made to let a little space be created between the cars at first to ensure that they achieve it. However, this message was not clear in its construction. “

It was not Alex who went against the team’s instructions.

“It was not even clear if the overtaking was possible or not. The primary function [de la consigne] consisted in cooling the car to be able to continue. For Carlos, the message was ‘Alex will not attack you’ and for Alex, the same message was communicated, namely that he should not exceed Carlos unless his DRS was open and that he was really next to Carlos to surpass. “

“It is therefore not Alex who went against the team instructions. It is to us, as a team, as an organization, to better communicate with engineers and to communicate more quickly with the pilots. There are a lot of lessons to learn from this situation. What I can assure for everyone is that it will not happen again. We are fortunate to have two world class pilots who are fighting for us and who will do absolutely everything you need for the team. “

Williams would still have reversed the positions

However, it should be noted that, if Vowles has guaranteed that the situation will be dealt with to be avoided in the future, he still revealed that his stable would mostly have proceeded to an exchange of positions in favor of Albon once the situation stabilized, for the simple reason that Sainz had undergone significant damage following contact between the two pilots at the start.

“What is worth adding on my side is that even once we have stabilized cars, it is more than likely that we would have very quickly reversed the positions, because Carlos underwent damage following the incident of the first round and that the situation was getting worse.”

“We could see that the floor deteriorated. This is partly the reason why Alex was getting closer to him and was able to overcome him. At this point, the loss really was a few tenths. It is therefore more than likely that we would have [inversé les positions]but again, it would have been a decision coming from the team rather than a pilot that did not expect to be attacked. “

“Finally, I would be disappointed if the pilots were not frustrated by what is happening on the track. They give themselves body and soul for us. In the case of Carlos, he was fighting for a fifth place in the regular and when something takes you off guard and you do not know if it is a driving problem or other, it can frustrate you. But his passion is exactly the reason I want it in this team and in the car. ”

“What I can provide for everyone is that we spent a lot of time after the race and again this Monday discussing the incident, which only spread over a few minutes, but above all the way we, as a team, are going to progress from there and do a better job together in the future.”

Avec Oleg Karpov