Carlos Sainz was frustrated despite the points in F1 Canadian GP, as Alexander Albon relays about his radio rant which he thinks was exaggerated.
After the low on Saturday in F1 Canadian GP, Williams’ Sainz had some solace on Sunday when he climbed up from 16th to finish 10th to score a point. His one-stop strategy worked after starting on the hard tyre. But he wasn’t too pleased despite the salvage job.
It was not a full power grand prix as he was nursing an issue related to overheating. He couldn’t press as much as he would have liked to probably catch and clear Esteban Ocon and or try to go after Nico Hulkenberg. The whole race was about management, which is another element of frustration.
He wants Williams to execute Sunday properly to maximise results. “A bit frustrated, if you would have told me at the start that you’ll start P16 and get a point, I would be proud and happy but the reality is that I am not,” said Sainz to media.
“We couldn’t push the whole race, I couldn’t really race since I was struggling with an issue on the car with cooling, having to cool the brakes all the time and we were two or three tenths off throughout the race in pace management, so couldn’t really show our pace and even like that the pace might have been too strong since we managed to a Top 10.
“But yeah, a bit frustrated because we spent whole race managing an issue. Everything, it is not the first race that it happens to us, we don’t manage to get everything under control on Friday, we have to learn better because its few races in a row that we cannot race on Sunday and it makes our Sunday a bit tricky, so yeah we still need to sort this thing.
“But as a team, we have potential in the car, in qualifying we were probably just unlucky with Isack, but in the race, it was more…even if we manage to recover with a good job and natural pace of the car, but we spent time managing the issues,” summed up Sainz, whose teammate Albon eventually retired due to power unit issue related to overheating.
Much like Sainz, he too had to keep the car cool while in battles. His big loss happened on Lap 1 when he had to cut the chicane at Turn 8-9 to avoid Franco Colapinto. That set him back as he could do nothing considering the new ruling. The late stop in the trial of one stop eventually didn’t work.
The medium tyres was degrading at a higher rate. The team wanted one stop but Albon insisted that it will not work. The Thai was proven right after the delayed stop left him last, since he lost a huge chunk of time in defence on highly degrading tyre.
“Personally, I feel like, there’s a trend recently, not getting around…in Barcelona it started to do this thing where one just releases the brake into Turn 1 and it kind of shoves the other car on the track, there’s a lot of cars who are behind, I had it with Franco where he cleverly releases the brake, I could turn in and he gets the penalty for not keeping in control or not giving me the space,” said Albon to media.
“But the way this rulebook is, if you don’t make contact, nothing really happens, so I want to protect the car obviously, I knew I could make the corner and turn in but you are never going to stop, so I had to cut the chicane and loose 2-3 positions, so that was my start gone. Unfortunately that’s how it was. Honestly this year we’ve been really good with strategy, I feel like we’ve always made the right calls.
“In mixed conditions, dry conditions, think about Imola, making the one-stop work, and situations like Melbourne or Miami where we make the right calls on different tyres. So as a team I think we’re very strong at that. This time we were stuck, we wanted to make the one-stop work, likely it was just eagerness to try and win the positions back that we lost at the start.
“In some ways we had pace so we thought we could make the one-stop work and offset the deg with just having a quicker car than the Alpines, for example, who were holding everyone up. But graining is king around here and when you grain, you can’t offset the pace. The graining initiated much later in the race than it did in FP2 so you thought you could extend but actually once the graining starts, you’ve got to box,” summed up Albon, who defended his radio rant as well.
When Williams decided to delay his stop, the Thai had long discussion on how it is not a good thing. In doing so, the world feed played a radio where Albon said, ‘why don’t you listen to me?’. He joked about FOM playing half radio exchanges, which is a norm and that there was more to those conversation.
“I came out P20 [the reason for no point in pitting after delaying it],” continued Albon. “That was the race [me going furthest on mediums in first stint]. Not all on the team [though]. I think it sounds like that in every other broadcast, you caught the end thing but there was a lot of chat before and we discussed things.
“I knew I couldn’t really hold onto the tyre as long as they wanted me to and I knew the guys on the hards would overtake me and we were going to loose about 4-5 positions. I was trying to make sure that we got into the pits…because obviously you are loosing positions, you are loosing 3-4 seconds per lap and getting stormed by the hard tyre drivers. We were kind of being in the middle spot at that point where we have gone long and at the same time we have to go even longer.
“That being said, my Lap 1 was not good and I need to do a better job than that. I feel like they strategically played my radio messages. I was saying it every single lap that this was not the right thing to do, but they wait until certain moments to post it,” summed up Albon.
Here’s start of Canadian GP: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-canadian-grand-prix-russell-leads-as-antonelli-jumps-piastri-on-the-race-start.1835020304157438572
Here’s Nico Hulkenberg on gaining due to Lap 1 fight