Alexander Albon weighs in on the Carlos Sainz situation as the Spaniard expands on his adjustment period at Williams, with James Vowles sharing his views.
After a goodish start, Sainz faced a drop in China where he was nowhere throughout the F1 weekend. The Spaniard expanded what derailed his progress, where he pinned it down to smaller things which he has to unlearn from his Ferrari time and relearn how things are at Williams.
He pinned this process timeline to 5-10 races, by when they would have raced in most types of circuits. He had a better time in Japan, but it was still not the best he has been. He is progressing step by step and he feels better now than what he did in China. But it is a continuous process.
While at the learning job, Sainz feels good that people expect him to do better than he is doing and knows that he can deliver. On a side note, the Spaniard reflected the fine he had to pay for being late to Japan’s national anthem. He revealed that he was warned by the FIA after saying ‘shit’ in Bahrain.
He apologised for the genuine error when speaking to the FIA media delegate after the press conference in Bahrain. His teammate Albon, meanwhile, added his inputs on the small window of operation that Williams finds itself in. He shared his view on where Sainz is at the moment with the team.
He doesn’t think the Ferrari habbit is anything bad for Sainz. On a more personal side, Albon feels better that he is doing well against a driver like the Spaniard, which shows his own talent after being pinned as winning against some weaker opponents that he had as his teammates thus far.
Best of Sainz yet –
Sainz: “Well, if you expect to see the best of Carlos Sainz in a Williams in the third race and in a new car, then yeah, you don’t understand the sport very well, or you know at least how long it might take for a driver to actually get fully up to speed with the car and to fully understand where the last tenth and a half or last two tenths of each car lies. Looking back at the first three races, I think I still haven’t yet put a full weekend together. The speed has been there—in Australia and Suzuka. In China, I had a bit of an off weekend through many different reasons. But to be honest, in Australia and Suzuka I think I was pretty quick, especially given that I’m still new to the car. To manage to be close or in the same tenth as Alex all the way through quali, I think it’s a good start to the season. I just need to make sure now we start doing less mistakes when it comes to executing the weekend and keep improving my speed because obviously I believe the speed still—we can improve it a little bit. But yeah, we are not as far as it seems. I feel like we just need to put a full weekend together and it will come. It is balance and a car that I’ve been looking forward to targeting in the recent races.
“Given I was not as happy in China, I looked back at the test to a set-up that we were running here and I was keen together with the team to try and put the car somewhere closer to the way it felt in Bahrain test because there I felt like I was up to speed and driving fairly naturally and I didn’t have to think so much while driving. While in China, I remember, and even in Suzuka, I’ve been having to really break my head to understand how to drive the car and to extract all the performance from it. But yeah, you first need to go through these weekends where you have a bit more of a challenging time to understand that and reverse engineer that. That takes time, you know. It’s 24 races. We’ve only done three and obviously everyone expected me to be straight up in the pace, which is a good thing. It means people value me and expect high things of me. But I was the first one that after Bahrain test when I was P1, I was like, I’m nowhere near where I need to be still with this car to perform at the level that I want to perform. So I was the first one coming down expectations and knowing that the first quarter of the year was going to be tough. Especially with a guy like Alex pushing hard and doing such a good job, obviously, it always takes a bit of time to get to that level. So I’m calm. I’m just down to my work doing my things and it will come.”
Why the struggle –
Sainz: “Yeah, you know, sometimes you jump into a Formula 1 car and you’re just naturally quick. Whatever you do to the car, the lap time comes easy. And I felt that was the case in Abu Dhabi test last year and in Bahrain test this year. I didn’t need to think while driving and I felt like as soon as I jumped in the car was quick—actually quicker even than what I thought I would be. I was surprisingly quick in my own expectations. And then we went into Australia, the balance changed a bit. The tarmac changes quite a bit from Bahrain to Australia, China and Japan with all these resurfaces that have been done and the car just feels completely different. The through-corner balance is different and you’re just a bit stuck on “what do I do now to my driving?” or “what do I do now to the car?” to go that one more tenth quicker. As I said, I was not far, I was within a tenth. That’s where you start digging into the data and you start working with your engineers. But you need to go through this whole loop, whole process, to actually get to conclusions and understandings, and that takes time and experience and some races.
“But as I said, I’m calm, I’m happy, and we’re getting there. We can try and sit with a piece of data in front of us and an onboard and I can maybe explain it to you. So yeah, I’d rather not go into that level of detail of the little things that you need to do with your driving style to extract the most out of each car. Obviously, Ferrari had certain car balance, a certain direction that we followed after three or four years of developing that car that required you to brake in a certain manner, turn in a certain manner, release the brake in a certain place—which you fall into a trap of after three years of muscle memory of doing everything that way. And when you jump into a different car, and especially under pressure in quali, you try and find the last two tenths of the car. You fall into your muscle memory because that’s the muscle memory that you have from three years. It’s not that you need to unlearn them, because those traits are actually making me very quick also in other types of corners. But you need to remember, in a certain type of corner, to not do it.
“That’s why it’s almost impossible to ask anyone to be quick in the first three races with a car, when you are only putting it the first sets of Soft tyres and zero kilos of fuel for the first time in those first three races — completely different tracks, completely different conditions, completely different tarmacs — and you’re having to relearn a lot of these things. And as I said, given how new everything is, for me to be in the same tenth in quali as a guy like Alex in Australia and at a confidence track like Suzuka, I’m not in a bad place. I just need to make sure I put the whole weekend together, with the penalties, with finding the lap time exactly in Q2—because now Q2 for us is the lap of your life, with the field within two tenths in Q2. So if you don’t put the lap in that moment of Q2, your weekend is over because you start 12th instead of P9. You cannot overtake in Suzuka and you cannot overtake in the midfield. So it’s the very small details that need to come together.”
Albon able to extract, so where you at –
Sainz: “Very confident. I think Alex has been able to extract the maximum out of the car these last three races, and all the progress that we’ve made during the winter since we changed the car, since I arrived, all the setup directions that we’ve been taking—it’s also leading into those positive results. And there’s a lot more to come in this team. I can tell you already, it’s amazing the amount of work that is being done back in the factory. The level of performance that we’ve managed to add to the car since last year to this year, I think it’s just in a very positive trend and in a very good direction. It’s something that extremely motivates me to try and help and try to contribute as much as possible. I’m doing it in other ways right now rather than on points. I wish I could do it also in points, but points will come during the season. But I’m very motivated, I’m very impressed with all the steps that the team is doing.”
Mercedes power unit hard to learn –
Sainz: “The Mercedes PU is probably the biggest change in changing teams that I’ve had to adapt to. One is aerodynamics and suspension, you go through, everything feels different. But when they change you the engine, that’s when you really feel some big differences. I do feel very big differences compared to Ferrari. There are also things in the way the team operates—with upshifts, downshifts, patterns, and the way they make the power unit work—that, as you could see in Australia, caught me out. But at the same time, you need to go through that experience almost to understand that this happens only in the Mercedes PU and not in a Ferrari. It’s interesting, because it’s quite a big change and it’s incredible how different two power units can be, but how close in performance they can be at the same time. So, yeah, I’m trying to give the team—and Mercedes—good feedback from what I believe Ferrari was doing better, and at the same time, giving feedback on what I think they are doing better than Ferrari. We are all trying to improve.”
Fine in Japan, warning in Bahrain –
Sainz: “I think I’m the biggest supporter of punctuality and being—in a way—a gentleman, being punctual to things, and especially a national anthem, with all the authorities there. So I was the first one to put my hand up and say, “I’m late. I’m sorry for that.” At the same time, I was five seconds late. And to be five seconds late and have to pay €10,000 or whatever the fine is, for me, it is out of the question that we are having to pay these fines. But yeah, I don’t know if I’m going to get another fine for saying this, but s**t happens. It’s the way it is. It’s the way it goes sometimes. I mean, €10K is—you guys know what €10K is. And for five seconds, it’s disappointing. I hope, as I’ve always said, I hope someone tells me where this €10K goes. And they say, “OK, at least it went to a nice cause,” and I will be looking forward to seeing where they go. For my Bahrain press conference jibe, I had a formal warning. I feel like that one is deserved because it is a controlled environment that I shouldn’t have sweared at. I put my hand up and apologised for it.”
What’s with Sainz, unlearning/relearning –
Albon: “I think Carlos understands the car very well, he understands the limitations of the car very well, most probably speak to him about driving style difference to maybe what he is used to but we definitely speak the same language in terms of…where the car needs to improve, maybe not new comments from me from my experiences in the car, but he’s definitely improving, it still has a DNA that we are trying to fix. But we can also say…I think people could be appreciating how close it is when you think about half a tenth in previous years, you almost guarantee to be sitting next to your teammate in qualifying, and now a days half a tenth can be two rows worth, so it just shows you how tight it has got. I don’t actually see many teammates anymore qualifying next to each other, I see a huge scatter everywhere and I think it is just because it has become that tight now which is great for us but it puts emphasis a bit on us more, which I am enjoying. It’s interesting to speak to Carlos about these things because these habits that he’s learned, they’re not necessarily bad habits from Ferrari. They’re good habits to have, and it’s trying to see if we can use them in our car.
“At the minute, there are some corners like I spoke about, which we can’t do, and he maybe has to default to a different driving style that he’s used to. Inevitably, they’re going to make the car quicker though. So, I think as a team we’re very good at taking everything on board and understanding what he’s saying and [it] might be a difficult solution to fix for this year, but for next year, have priorities in certain areas to have a better car for next year. I am glad to have someone like him, who’s got a high reputation and from whom I can learn from, really I enjoy that challenge, I like to be up against someone who is very quick – maybe he hasn’t put together all weekends but he’s definitely quick on paper. I see it as a really enjoyable challenge, that being said, I know there are comments being around like the previous years not been that great for me but I think it is more just that I feel like I can now show people like what I can actually do. It is great, Carlos is finding his feet.”
Difficulties with the car –
Albon: “Yes, to be quick with this car, it needs a certain setup, and it’s not always the most comfortable setup. It was clear there’s a couple of corners on each track that we go to that we are relatively weak, compared to the midfield. I think we’re producing good downforce. We’re just struggling with balance in a few corners, but to fix them corners means we normally have to compromise the rest of the lap, so it makes it quite a window that we are in most weekends. That’s not new, and we’ve had that for many years. That’s the trade that we make weekend to weekend, track to track. When there are less trades, like Melbourne, we’re quick.
“When there are a bit more trades, like China, maybe we struggle a little bit more. So far though, it’s a huge step from last year. The windows that we’re talking about are much less, but they’re still there. And I think that’s partly where Carlos and I are on the same language. That’s where we are always fighting with set-up, we are all trying to do something in the corners, I think a good example would be Japan. We were really weak in two corners around the lap, but on the rest of the lap, we’re actually not far away from the top teams. But we can’t get one without the other, so… That’s been a main issue.”
Job Sainz is doing –
Vowles: “I’ve said it already – there are two ways to assess performance for a driver. The first is what they’re doing in the car, and it will take him time. Our car has a very different style of adapting to it than the Ferrari. He’s getting there. I think Japan already was a large step in performance. As I said to everyone else – the last person to win a race is him, and he knows how to do this. He’ll be on the money very shortly. In terms of what he’s doing, even out of the car – the car is faster thanks to the work and effort, the work ethic he’s put in, and how he really develops with the engineers. That’s why Carlos was my number one target.
“It’s because he’s absolutely brilliant at developing teams, and he’s already bringing that to the table. And then above that, as you saw, he’s a part-time strategist – but quite good in that regard. Part of the reason why we have the points score is thanks to his help supporting Alex. I don’t think so [that closeness is hurting]. I use relative gaps, as does he. Yes, the difference now is when you’re a tenth off, there’s four cars that shuffle in between the two. But it’s a relative numbers game. Between him and Alex, I don’t think there’ll be a millisecond to spare when both are on song. That’s what he’s reviewing. That’s what I’m reviewing as well.”
Adjusting team and drivers –
Vowles: “What I think we’ve created in Williams across the last 12 months is – we’ve grown by something like 300 people. We’ve brought in expertise from pretty much every team on the grid. One of the things we’ve been good at doing is creating a culture of acceptance – that we are not world champions and we have not been world champions for 20 years. Therefore, every opinion has value, and every individual has a voice at the table. It’s a flat structure. I believe that everyone has the potential to have ideas that will move us forward – and Carlos is no different. He fits into that structure really well. He doesn’t have any politics in him whatsoever.
“He just wants the team to be quicker. For that matter, Alex does too. I haven’t actually had to do a tremendous amount apart from that initial – almost laying the law down that we are not world championship material. And by the way, even if we were and we were winning races, you can still be learning. You have to outlearn your rivals, you have to out-develop your rivals. That culture is fundamental to a successful racing team. But what really helps with it is that Carlos just has a manner to him that is constructive. It’s not about him. It’s about ‘if we do this, we will find performance together’ – and that brings everyone on the journey.”
Here’s Carlos Sainz on things after China
