Williams boss James Vowles has denied that Alex Albon disregarded a team order when he overtook team-mate Carlos Sainz during the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.
Sainz, who crossed the line behind the sister car in ninth, was irked post-race as he indicated that Albon’s pass on him on Lap 14 had gone against a team instruction.
The Spaniard revealed that he had been told the positions would remain unchanged when his team-mate stormed past him down the back straight going into Turn 11.
Having conceded that he had “lost confidence” on team radio on his cooldown lap, Sainz later contended that he had been made to “look stupid” in that circumstance.
Vowles has explained how a miscommunication on the team’s side meant Albon was about to complete the move on Sainz when he was ordered to maintain the gap.
“A message was communicated to both race engineers, effectively that Alex had a reliability problem and we needed to get some air into the radiators,” Vowles said.
“That was communicated to both with the decision of just making a little gap between the cars for the time being to make sure we do that.
“However, that message wasn’t clear in its construct. It wasn’t even clear on whether overtaking was possible or not.
“The primary function is getting the car cool to move forward.
“To Carlos the message was communicated: ‘Alex won’t attack you’, and to Alex that same message was communicated that he isn’t to overtake Carlos, but only [once] his DRS was open and he was effectively alongside Carlos completing the overtake.
“So this isn’t Alex going against team orders, this is on us as a team as an organisation to significantly tighten up how we communicate to the engineers and how quickly we communicate to the drivers.
“What I can assure everyone is it simply won’t happen again.”
Williams swap would have occurred regardless
Sainz’s race had been compromised on the opening lap when a minor touch with Albon caused damage to his FW47 that blighted his pace throughout the entire race.
Vowles divulged that the Grove-based squad was willing to move Sainz aside once Albon’s own problems were under control to avoid slowing his eventual run to fifth.
“Even once we had stabilised them, we more than likely would have very quickly inverted the cars,” he added.
“The reason behind that is Carlos had sustained damage from that lap one incident and it was getting worse and worse.
“We could see the floor was deteriorating, that’s part of the reason why Alex was getting closer and closer to him and able to re-overtake.
“The loss was really mounting into a couple of tenths by this point.
“So more than likely we would have done that, but again that would be a team decision rather than a driver not expecting to be attacked.”
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