Alexander Albon was fine with F1 British GP recovery after average qualifying, but Carlos Sainz was left disappointed after another unlucky outing.
While it ended up in a disaster for Williams’ Sainz in F1 British GP at Silverstone, Albon saved the day for the team after finishing eighth to score important points when all their rivals scored heavy. They have fifth in constructors’ still, but Sauber has closed in on them handsomely.
At one point, Sainz looked like the driver to score well for Williams, as Albon was stuck behind him and didn’t benefit on strategy. But the Spaniard’s luck didn’t gel with him, allowing the Thai to get ahead and put Williams in the Top 10. He got Fernando Alonso on the final lap to eighth.
It was a recovery drive and much needed points after three retirements in the previous races. “No, I’m happy,” said Albon to media. “It’s one of them ones where the ones at the back take the risks and they get the…I don’t know what the saying is…cherry pie. I think on a scale of risk and safe, we were pretty much in the middle. I think we played it well.
“On my side, a little bit compromised in the race because I was always behind Carlos. So we ended up clearly giving priority to Carlos on the stops and always losing quite a lot of lap time in doing the additional lap, let’s say. But we had really good pace towards the end of the race, we got in a good rhythm. And we got Fernando on the last lap, which was nice.
“I mean, I love the conditions. When the racing line is so small and there’s no room for mistake, I feel like you’re driving every lap a little bit like that. It’s great. I think as well, we’ve been struggling this weekend in general, Williams, with the performance of the car. We were overheating the intermediates really badly. But because it was still damp on the slick tyre, it was actually putting our tyre temperatures in a good window. And we were quick.
“So I think we need to learn and understand why we were so quick on Sunday, compared to the rest of the weekend. After a disappointing qualifying session, we bounced back to a position that I think is where we deserve to be. Yeah, I mean, we’re always in this together. We’ve made many fantastic calls. And it’s just that we didn’t qualify where we should have been. I think, again, to be fair with you, Alpine really played it very well.
“I need to see Nico in the race; I don’t understand how he finished third. But if you think about the position we’re in, we can’t take that many risks. We’re already in the points and there’s no point just rolling the dice. I think we played these weekends very well,” summed up Albon, who hopes that Williams can get the momentum back with the points results going forward.
They don’t have the big set of updates like their rivals, but he hopes when it comes through, it helps them to just stay ahead of their immediate rivals. “Strong start, strong middle,” continued Albon. “I actually think we would have had a strong last four races if we…did not DNF]. This is the first race I’ve finished in a while now. We finished, I think, with four points.
“So we’re not in a bad place, we just had a rough time of it. We’ll have more time to do it with the data from this weekend. We’ve done a few tests in the car to see where this overheating problem is coming from. We need to still get on top of that for Spa. And at the same time, I see Sauber, I see Haas, they’re all getting quicker and quicker. They’ve put upgrades on their car.
“We’re now fallen in line. At least these last couple of weekends, we haven’t been the fifth quickest team. We’re definitely further down than that. We’re due an upgrade. We want one sooner rather than later. It will come on the car. Hopefully, when it does, we can get back to where we were before,” summed up Albon.
As noted above, Sainz looked good to score until his moment with Charles Leclerc which ruined his outing. One of the moves was shown on TV, but the bigger one wasn’t. The Monegasque apologised for the Turn 15 hit, which wasn’t broadcasted. The Spaniard couldn’t believe his luck, even in a grand prix like Silverstone, where there was a good opportunity to score.
He reckoned finishing 12th was as good as retiring the car. “It was going well, I feel like the whole year so far we were doing everything right, the strategy goals, good driving. P7, P8 at the time,” said Sainz to media. “Ten laps to go when I was fighting with Charles, I think he was on his out lap on the slicks. He lost control of the car and crashed into me. And that was it.
“I went back to P12 with a damaged car, and I finished P12. Again, very unlucky. A bit fed up with this situation where always something happens to us that is out of our control. No offence to Charles, this always can happen to any driver. Just upset with the fact that it happened to me again when we were about to have a clean weekend and a clean race.
“For me at P12 it’s like retiring. In the position we are, it feels like a retirement, especially because we were running P7, P8. We had done everything right. Yes, maybe the others took a bit more gambles on the strategy calls. And maybe they will look into what Nico did. And Stroll, I think, did a couple of also good calls maybe. But we did a very solid race with management of the pace and the race.
“So we’re in the ideal position to score a top-seven, top eight result. And sadly, I think with Charles, he lost control of the car and took me out. It’s what it is. There’s nothing we can do. But I welcome this two-week break to see if something changes in my luck. So we can start having an F1 season. Because this has been everything but good so far. It was damaged after the contact with Charles.
“Floor and front wing. I don’t think it was on TV. They told me it wasn’t. We were fighting into Turn 15, I think he lost the car in 15, and he went in the gravel. It was there when I was on his left and crashed into me. I was overtaking him, back on the slicks. That’s why I’m surprised they didn’t put it on the reviews. We went into Turn 15, he went on the middle of the track, picked up the wet stuff and crashing to me like this,” summed up Sainz.
Here’s Charles Leclerc on Carlos Sainz move
