Carlos Sainz explains his side in the incident with Andrea Kimi Antonelli in F1 US GP, as Alexander Albon notes on awkward Lap 1 spin.
It was not the end that Williams’ Sainz wanted in F1 US GP after a good show in sprint. The Spaniard tried the same move on Haas’ Oliver Bearman at Turn 15 and it stuck after the Brit gave him room, but against Mercedes’ Antonelli, it didn’t work when the two made contact.
Sainz tried the same move on Antonelli, but the Italian turned in. The two tried to avoid the collision at the last moment, but it was too late. The Spaniard was adjudged the guilty party and handed time penalty, which converted to 5-place grid drop in this weekend’s Mexico GP.
Sainz felt Antonelli could have given him more space, but it was clumsy eventually. The Spaniard felt he had strong pace, better than Antonelli and potentially teammate George Russell. In his quest for a Top 5 finish, the Williams driver took a step which ended up in his retirement.
“Yeah, I was coming quite quickly and feeling confident, obviously,” explained Sainz to media. “I felt like I had a lot of pace today again in the car, and I had just done a very similar move on Ollie in Turn 15 at the time. So I went for the same move on Antonelli. I think he started closing the door earlier than I expected, and I ultimately locked up and got a bit scared by him closing on me and yeah, we collided.
“I think the incident looks a lot worse than what it actually is because, again, it’s just a small lock-up with high consequences. But a pity because we were coming on a good weekend. I think George looked to be struggling in front of Kimi. Kimi seemed to struggling, so today I think seems to be the day where we could’ve got points.
“It looked like it was tough to overtake out there and you either do it in the infield or something because it definitely looked like it was difficult to pass. I mean, you can always play it safe and bring home the P8 and wonder. Then you always go for a move. Sometimes with Ollie, it works perfectly, and it goes smoothly.
“With Kimi, he was a bit more aggressive, a bit more closing the door, and it was more difficult to get the move done. And then you go home with zero. So this sport is just a very fine balance between just playing it safe, bringing home the P8 or risking it a bit more to try and bring home the P7 or the P6 and today it didn’t quite work. It is racing, it is same as always.
“One day, you look like a hero. The next day, people will criticise you and bring you down. The next day, you get a good result, and it’s the opposite. So it’s racing,” summed up Sainz, who further expanded on the thought process in trying to avoid late on. He was given the example of Yuki Tsunoda, who avoided a move from Oliver Bearman in the same grand prix.
“That’s the thing with experience, sometimes they divebomb you and you take a bit of evasive action,” continued Sainz. “I think the incident with Kimi looked like worse than what it is. I think the car’s turning in, when I see him turning in, that’s when I lock-up because I realise he has not seen me or we are about to crash because he is closing so.
“I know it looks bad from the outside in terms of the lock-up and the contact, honestly speaking with these wide apex that we have here, we both need to be aware of in the race. I think in this case, we both didn’t do a good job,” summed up Sainz, as Antonelli shared his side of things. He felt it was a bit too optimistic from the Spaniard which left them both in a spot of bother.
While Antonelli managed to continue, he had vibrations which made it difficult in overtaking. “I think it is pretty clear, just very optimistic,” he said to media. “It’s just a shame that I got taken out. Yeah, that’s it. The race was ruined and it was difficult then. I did see him. If you look at the image I even avoid hitting the apex on purpose. When I saw him coming, he was far.
“But then I saw he locked-up and I was just hoping him not to hit me but at the end I got taken out. It was a bit scrappy [afterwards]. I had a lot of vibration. I hit a little bit of the wall with the rear wing. I don’t know if it was damage, but also I had quite a lot of vibration. So I need to check if the car was fully fine. It was difficult. I think pace was OK when I was in free air.
“But then obviously in dirty air, especially today the deg was big, it was difficult. Overall, I think it [pace] was there. I came quite quick but with the dirty air it is quite difficult. I felt, to be honest, better on the medium than soft. On soft, I suffered a bit more deg but overall I think on medium the pace was pretty good,” summed up Antonelli, who found some support from team boss Toto Wolff.
The Austrian saw better performance from Antonelli until the point of contact. “Yeah, that’s how I would say, I mean, Carlos launched fair enough, but that would have not…you can’t expect the driver to back out of the situation so late into the cornering phase,” said Wolff to media. “You know, similar to the races, you can’t have great weekends in a row, considering that he’s so young.
“He’s been very good recently. Today, also a victim of the difficulty of overtaking. He’s done a good recovery, in my opinion, going through the field at the beginning, but then strategy-wise, there’s not a lot that was left on the table. So, yeah, I think performance-wise, it’s okay. Today was okay. Hopefully, we can go back to the performances like in Singapore.”
After the high in sprint, Williams left with no points as teammate Albon too had a moment on Lap 1 which cost him. He felt it was awkward spin against Bortoleto, who was not at fault as per the Thai and also the FIA stewards. In addition, the hard tyre choice didn’t work out in the grand prix.
“It was a little bit awkward, I think Gabriel cut in, it is not really his fault in it,” said Albon to TV media. “Just lazy and awkward moment. Had a spin, caught the group up again. Then with the Carlos’ incident, we pitted for mediums, so we effectively were a pit behind. We got back to 14th, we had good pace, we were scrapping a lot.
“It is weird because with this weather and wind, it was so hard to follow compared to other day. That’s why overtaking was so much harder, to stay close in Sector 3 was a nightmare. A frustrating day. We started on the hard tyre, which is usually a good option when the track is this hot, but we had no grip and effectively did another stop early in the race.
“We actually had good pace, but it was a bit scrappy at times and we just weren’t clicking in the corners. This weekend I didn’t feel like I was in rhythm with the circuit, but at least we came out of the Sprint with a few points and some key learnings,” summed up Albon.
Here’s incident between Carlos Sainz and Andrea Kimi Antonelli: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-united-states-grand-prix-sainz-out-after-contact-with-antonelli.1846442885952167859
Here’s how F1 US GP panned out
Here’s Gabriel Bortoleto on clash with Alexander Albon