Alexander Albon was trying to hype up a boring F1 Japanese GP via his radio messages as he explains his sentiments behind it, while Carlos Sainz feels much better after China disaster.
There was not much happening in F1 Japanese GP, but in the Williams’ cockpit, Albon was raging on. Initially, it was about shit setting causing problems and later on, the Thai was not so pleased with the strategy call made by his team, while he was running ninth in the order.
Post-race, he noted that the shift setting was something ailing him throughout the weekend. They found a stable one in qualifying, but it didn’t work properly in the race. As for the strategy, he was not happy since the team was covering Oliver Bearman running behind him.
His intention is to look forwards rather than backwards, irrespective of a chance or not. “I think it was a boring race, so they kept using my radio messages,” joked Albon when asked by the media. “Shift settings, we’ve been experimenting with shift settings all weekend, and we landed on something we were quite happy with. I think in the end it actually felt better in qualifying and didn’t feel that good in the race, so we reverted.
“In terms of strategy, I didn’t feel like we needed to lose time behind Max because he overtook us. So we lost about a second and a half to Isack in that process, and then we boxed immediately after he overtook me. I’m sure they’ll show me why. Maybe I would have come out behind another car but in that moment, it felt like we wasted a second and a half.
“Obviously, if we could have pitted the same lap as Ollie, and pitted the lap before, we wouldn’t have had the issue at all. It was more because we were… I guess in my head, I’m always racing the car in front, not the car behind. I don’t want to lose time to Isack, and I think after the pitstop he was about five and a half seconds in front, six seconds in front. We got it back to three and a half, but we just lost out. I don’t think Isack was possible to overtake. But yeah, we’re trying to get P8.
“But, saying that, I think the car didn’t feel that easy to drive this weekend. I think the wind and some of the corners weren’t playing to our favour. I think on Friday [with] the car, the wind suited us more and it flipped 180 degrees on Sunday. But we still scored points and that just shows you, even on out days that we’re not that optimal, we’re able to still score some points,” summed up Albon.
Overall, the Thai was happy to get two points considering how they suffered with the balance. “Very happy, very happy, like I said, it wasn’t easy out there, and I felt like we were quite limited in terms of the balance of our car,” he said. “High speed, low speed, we were on the extremes of two different balances and two different speeds of corners. So to be able to get there [to P9], I’m happy.”
Teammate Sainz ended up outside the points but his larger takeaway was performing better than what he did in China. His problem of unlearning and relearning is ongoing and Japan was one step in the good direction after the shock in China, where nothing worked for him.
“It was definitely a bit of shame, not even starting in P12 I would finished in points,” said Sainz. “The midfield is so tight around a track where you need to be seven-eight tenths quicker, it is almost impossible to try and have that race from where you comeback through the field, even though the pace was good and I felt comfortable.
“The few laps I got clean air, I was quick, but grid position in a way now has become similar to Monaco with how difficult it is to pass. I’ll take the positives from this weekend that I was feeling more comfortable and the pace was there and now I can hopefully put the weekend together and get in more experience with the car. The car was good enough for points,” summed up Sainz.
Here’s Luke Browning getting FP1 run in Bahrain
Here’s Carlos Sainz on unlearning/relearning
