Carlos Sainz terms F1 Australian GP miss as a horrible situation, as Alexander Albon was pleased to have seen-through the awkward race with solid points.
It didn’t start well for Williams in F1 Australian GP after good qualifying. Sainz crashed out behind the safety car after he pressed the upshift at the wrong time and wrong part of the track to spin out. It derailed the team’s hopes by a bit, but Albon hung on in sixth mightily.
He resisted pressure from Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton – after losing out to Charles Leclerc – for majority of the grand prix, even if he couldn’t push on Visa Cash App RB’s Yuki Tsunoda. Eventually, he finished fifth on the road and was promoted to fourth against Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
But Mercedes’ right of review worked and Albon was demoted to fifth again to score a decent 10 points. For the Thai racer, he was pleased to see the end of it in tricky conditions. He felt up and down throughout the grand prix. The important thing was scoring points against immediate rivals.
“Honestly, it was one of those really awkward races where it never felt comfortable,” said Albon to media. “The wind was gusting like crazy. The conditions were obviously so mixed. I wasn’t that confident in the race. It was more about just making sure you don’t make mistakes, and you knew the result was going to come at the end of it.
“There were moments in the race where I felt better, and other moments of the race where I felt, especially when the wind picked up, where I felt like relative to others, I was losing performance. I think as a team, we really executed everything we could. First race, it’s not easy to be dialled in, in terms of strategy and approach to the weekend, and we executed everything so well today to get that P4 (P5).
“Just a fantastic start, and it just shows we made a huge step from last year. These results, they’re not going to come around very many times this year, and so we’ve talked a lot about capitalising early internally within Williams, trying to make sure that we take advantage of rookie drivers and things like that to get those points quickly, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.
“I back myself in these conditions, I know my limits and I know not to overpush it. But, at the same time, starting P6, I would have been very happy to finish a P7 when one of the Ferraris got past. But to get into the weekend today and get P4 (P5) – I wouldn’t like to have done that race again! I’m glad that it’s done. Windy especially gusty weather and inter tyres that start overheating generally are not a good combination for us.
“All being honest, I think relative to the RB and the Alpine, we weren’t as competitive as we wanted to be. But we were much more competitive than we were last year in those conditions. You could feel it in your helmet how much wind was moving around and honestly, it was nice to know that the pace was still there and I was just risking a little bit more when I knew the pit window was going to open, and things like that.
“When I pushed, I could catch Yuki no problem, and I was just kind of waiting for him to box or not box and obviously we came in first and did the right call,” summed up Albon.
Teammate Sainz felt horrible crashing out behind the safety car, especially after the build-up they had. He was pleased to take up a place in the pitwall to help Albon with strategy. “I’ve had a chance to look at the data and we could clearly spot what happened – and that leaves me a bit more calm about the whole situation,” he said.
“Because obviously I wasn’t even going on throttle at the exit of the Safety Car in a Safety Car situation, and I know having experience for these kind of things, but it’s what it is. More than a surge, it was post-upshift. I had a big torque kick from a poor upshift. I don’t want to go in the technical details because it is for us to analyse, yeah, it is a something related to that and now we will learn from it and fight together the situation.
“We haven’t got our season started yet. We will need to wait one more race to properly kick it off. At the same time, being out of the car has helped Alex bring this P4 (P5), given that I could sit down with the strategy team and pick the perfect lap to pit him. It is a horrible situation because that is the last thing you want to spin or crash behind the safety car when you are not even pushing, it is really bad.
“With Alex, it’s still a good result, a good outcome for the team, and we can now focus on getting my season started in China,” summed up Sainz. Team boss James Vowles not only had praise for what Albon achieved, he backed the Spaniard to deliver as well and lauded his input with strategy.
“No result is the result of one person, it is a team coming together,” he said. “The pit stops were on point, the strategy, well done to them. One point to note on the strategy is there was an additional strategist today, which was Carlos. Carlos, his insight was incredibly useful on that transition to the intermediate. We saw other teams not sure, ‘Do we try and hang it out, can we try and hang it out?’, and Carlos was adamant, ‘You won’t survive on that through the last few corners’.
“He was spot on, and helped drive us towards that. I’m just incredibly proud over the last 12 months in how this team has grown and performed, and I think today’s result is reward for them. The way Alex and Carlos are in the team, they are leaders trying to drive our organisation forward. We are here all together to get the best results we can for Williams,” summed up Vowles.
Here’s crash of Carlos Sainz: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-australian-grand-prix-sainz-crashes-out-on-lap-2-behind-the-safety-car.1826724744196516657
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out
