Carlos Sainz reflects on fight against Yuki Tsunoda and Andrea Kimi Antonelli in F1 Bahrain GP, as Alexander Albon reckons points was possible.
It was a fighting race for Williams’ Sainz all-through in F1 Bahrain GP on the fringes of the Top 10. He was amidst the train of cars fighting for the lower rug of points. In that battle, the Spaniard had a contact with Yuki Tsunoda, which damaged his sidepod – causing a hole in it.
He was surprised by no penalty for Tsunoda, but understood after the race. In that period of trying to extent, on re-start, he pushed off Andrea Kimi Antonelli which resulted in a 10s time penalty for Sainz. He did serve the penalty via pit stop before retiring the car.
There was a goof-up post race by the FIA when they initially handed him a grid drop for Saudi Arabia for not serving the penalty, but they recalled that decision after it was rectified that he did serve the penalty. “We had some good fights out there,” said Sainz to media.
“At the same time, you know, after a really good start, I felt like I was always fighting cars that were just those 2,3 tenths quicker per lap than us, and this makes you want to stay with them, catch their DRS, use a bit more of your tyre and start going backwards once you try to do that.
“So a bit of a frustrating situation to be in with Lewis, Kimi, and I think Yuki at the time, but I gave it a good shot trying to stay up with them, and yeah, it seemed like we could at one point, but then started degging. On the 2nd stint, I recovered some good pace on mediums once we all went into new tyres, and I was going to get Yuki back.
“I did actually do a good move into turn one and then exiting turn one, I think he lost the rear and touched my sidepod with a big snap that he had to catch, and that was a race over for me because I lost 40, 50 points of load, and that makes you a second and a half slower and you just go backwards from then on. He did lose the car fighting with me and that cost me the race.
“At the same time, when I look at the onboard, it is a kind of race incident also. It cost me my race. A bit of a lack of control from him in that situation, but at the same time if I was Yuki and you lose the car a bit in the middle of a fight, you would understand why you don’t want a penalty. So bit of a tough one to call, but this time it cost me a bit. I got the wrong side of the coin and it is what it is.
“This [contact with Antonello] was just a heat-of-the-moment, fighting for positions. After the Safety Car restart with a cold hard [tyre] and no downforce in the car, I just locked up and went a bit wide. I was trying to let him by but then there was Alex, so I decided to let Alex by knowing that he’s my teammate. It resulted in a 10-second penalty, but I knew I was going to retire anyway.”
Having had a difficult China weekend, Sainz has felt much better in the car in Japan and Bahrain. He felt the pace was good in the latter even if they were behind Alpine, who looked better. “Good quali, good start, already a couple of good starts in a row with this car, good attacking first lap, decent pace,” he continued. “The Alpine was too big for us this weekend.
“And when you have the top eight cars plus the two Alpines, that’s top 10 positions, and I was there between P1 and P10 fighting for my life, but yeah, we were just not quite quick enough, but again, first two stints a lot to learn from again, good start, good quality, so we’re in the right trajectory.
“The weekends will come a bit more together hopefully, and at the same time we have this little bit to improve on the car to see if we can catch Gasly and Doohan with the Alpines because this weekend they seem to be on the other league than more than in our league,” summed up Sainz.
Even Albon saw Pierre Gasly as the biggest challenge, but he felt Williams had the second best car in that pack of cars. He reckoned points was definitely on but safety car did not come at the right time to help them. “It was working out beautifully,” he said. “We had a really good pace advantage on the 4-5 laps, it is a huge delta here.
“We were coming on really strong in the second stint, I don’t think you could really see it but we overtook on track and I was catching Carlos and Yuki about six or seven tenths per lap, I was right behind them when the safety car happened. I was about to pas I think for P9 and P8 with Esteban on the cards there.
“And obviously, we could have created a delta to go on softs at the end of the race, that was a plan and that would have again been good for us on a cold track. But the safety car reset the race for us, we had to double stack, so I lost 2 or 3 positions in the pits. It kind of put us in a rock in a hard place because we just used the hards and we wanted to use the softs, we couldn’t because it was too long, so we used the new mediums.
“It was scrappy, points for sure was on the cards, a little bit unfortunate but that’s the race. Honestly the race pace was strong on Friday and on Sunday it was strong too. We were fighting with cars and racing them, to me we were the second quickest field car behind Pierre, so to come away in P12 is a bit frustrating,” summed up Albon.
Here’s contact between Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-bahrain-grand-prix-tsunoda-and-sainz-make-contact-after-battling-at-turn-1.1829307630749683560
Here’s Yuki Tsunoda on contact with Carlos Sainz
