Carlos Sainz said he was made to “feel stupid” after a team order miscommunication led to Williams team-mate Alex Albon overtaking him in the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.
The Williams duo passed and re-passed one another several times in the opening laps of last Sunday’s race at the Miami International Autodrome.
The first instance came on Lap 1 when Lando Norris went wide at Turn 2 and returning to the action caused a bottleneck at Turn 3, making way for Albon to sweep past Sainz and unfortunately damage the Spaniard’s front wing.
Sainz later got back past and was under the impression Albon would protect him from behind.
On Lap 12, Sainz said, “Let’s go forward guys, we’re compromising the race here, let’s get into a rhythm,” adding, “I could do with a bit of help from Alex.”
But the Anglo-Thai driver appeared not to receive that message and passed his team-mate into Turn 11 on Lap 14, before going on to finish fifth.
Sainz, no doubt impacted by the front wing clipping, succumbed to both Ferraris to finish ninth and was very unhappy during his post-race team radio comms.
“Yeah, that’s not… That’s not how I go racing, guys,” he told Race Engineer Gaetan Jego.
“I don’t care. I’ve lost a lot of confidence here, on everything.”
Williams Team Principal James Vowles then joined in on the comms to say, “we’ll discuss this in the debrief, but I agree with you. We need proper engagement [from him].”
Sainz explains fury post-race
Sainz’s demeanour didn’t improve once out of the car and in front of the written press.
The disappointed Spaniard explained his side of the situation, and why he felt aggrieved.
“The team told us that we were going to freeze positions, then… I don’t know if he got the message or not but basically he overtook me back,” Sainz told select media including Motorsport Week post-race.
“If I’m told on the radio that I’m not going to be attacked and we’re going to push together, to be overtaken as a driver you feel stupid, because you feel powerless, you’re playing the good guy – the same way that I played the good guy in Jeddah – and you get overtaken, and you look completely stupid.”
Calming slightly, Sainz conceded, “But it’s the way it goes, we’ll talk about it, I’m sure we’ll come out of it better as a team and we will move on.”
Albon, meanwhile, no doubt holds the position his pace to go on and finish fifth warranted his course of action, saying, “We had really strong pace on my side of the garage. We proved that we were strong.”
The Anglo-Thai driver was being told to hold station behind Sainz, in the very moment he began his Lap 14 manoever, and he told his Race Engineer “[I’m] about to overtake” to which James Urwin replied, “crack on then.”
Asked about the Lap 14 incident that caused Sainz’s anger, Albon said, “It was most probably in the exact moment of that message was when I overtook him.
“I think if we stayed together a little bit longer, then I would’ve been told that [to stay back] – but for that time we were still free to race. I think it was just a delay between the two cars.”
READ MORE – Williams ‘cornered’ by F1 car issues plaguing Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz
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