Carlos Sainz thought it was still good result in F1 Las Vegas GP, while Alexander Albon had no radio and was surprised by penalty.
Having started third in F1 Las Vegas GP, Williams’ Sainz immediately lost the position to George Russell, who moved up to second. The Spaniard initially had the pair of Visa Cash App RB cars of Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson on his tail along with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
As the race progressed, Sainz then had to fend from Charles Leclerc and Piastri. But he lost out to both of them eventually via pit stop and dropped back in the order. The team’s focus shifted to defending from Hadjar rather than the Monegasque and the Australian.
But in the last stint, he managed to get on their tail when they were stuck behind Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The Spaniard had a good gap over Hadjar and finished sound seventh which got converted to fifth due to double disqualification of the McLaren drivers after the grand prix.
“I mean, it’s a 50-lap race, fighting cars that are two to four tenths quicker per lap like they’ve been all year in the dry, so it’s not like with a normal race you have much of a chance on keeping them behind,” said Sainz to media. “I think I did a pretty solid job in the first stint. And I think around the pit stop, we were a bit on the conservative side with the pit stop timing, allowing them to get within reach and overcutting or undercutting us.
“But I think we were playing the safe game, trying to beat Hadjar rather than Charles and Piastri, and probably we lost a couple of positions around that window. But I mean, we finished 10 seconds ahead of Hadjar, only four seconds behind Charles and Piastri, and they were not actually that much quicker in terms of pace, so I think we need to be proud with today,” summed up Sainz.
While the Spaniard had a fairly straightforward race, teammate Albon was marred by incidents and big gremlin of his radio not working. The team had to resort to old style of using the pit board, but that didn’t convey all the messages, especially relating to damage and blue flags, etc.
In fact, his start was also checked upon but he was let off. He is not sure why the gremlin kicked in. “I think so and if you think about it, no radio, no awareness of blue flags and all kinds of things can happen,” said Albon to media. “Even just on little things like safety cars and debris on the track, kind of having to discover it myself and all these kind of things.
“So you can imagine it’s not ideal on a track like Vegas, it’s a bit dangerous. So, yeah, we cut it short but frustrating because I think… yeah, it’s clearly an opportunity missed which, again, I think we’ve been very strong in terms of pace and even in the race when I had clear air, I was very quick. So, yeah. We’ve gone through a few gremlins these last few weeks and just need to kind of get on top of them.
“I think we’ve had a lot of not normally stopping problems, like retirement problems, but a lot of these little ones which we’ve been battling, for the end of the season. At the start, maybe I didn’t have the pit limiter on. We have so many procedures for the start and it does help when the engineer tells you every single one when you start. I imagine it would have been that, yeah.
“Lap number, went to box, and then aversion of box because you’ve got a penalty, just have my fives. I don’t know what I got, five second, 10 second. So, yeah, like I said, old school. It was peaceful out there,” summed up Albon, who recalled the start incident where he was caught out due to Gabriel Bortoleto’s bold attempt. The Thai told he was hit and he himself hit the back of another car.
It potentially damaged his car but with no radio, he didn’t know the extent of it. “I don’t know, I’m without radio, I don’t know either,” continued Albon. “Gabby kind of went in on the inside and then everyone had to slam their brakes to try to get away from him. We all concertinaed up, so we all made… I got hit from the back, I hit the car in front. Maybe that.”
His problems compounded when he was handed 5s time penalty for causing a collision against Lewis Hamilton at The Strip. The Brit made a mistake and the Thai tried to pounce on him which he almost did. However, the move resulted in the Williams driver damaging his front wing endplate after he hit the back of the Ferrari driver into the braking zone.
Albon was surprised by the penalty, bt he served it before retiring due to no radio and damage. “Yeah, well, we didn’t have radio at any point in the race, so throwback to kind of old school style, pit boards out, but it was a shame because after lap one with all the crashing and everything, there was clearly damage on the car but it was hard to know if it was safe to drive,” he said.
“You just kind of just, ‘oh, it’s turning’. I know there was damage because I hit the car in front and I think I got hit from the back. So, yeah, it was a frustrating one. I think nothing really tied. I think the incident with Lewis was… I don’t know why I got a penalty for that because he didn’t go off the track, he didn’t have any problems.
“He didn’t…so I just, I don’t know what it was for but anyway, I was a little bit caught out with how early he broke into the last corner, but yeah, that’s about it. Nothing much really. He made a mistake in the corner before, so I had to run on him. Being totally honest, I was surprised how early he broke into turn 14 and it just caught me out.
“I most probably should have just…maybe after his mistake in the corner before, maybe he was a bit tentative in the next one. So when I went for the overtake, it just surprised me how…I kind of had to…I tried as hard as I could to avoid him, and I just… we raced. Like I said, I don’t think it was a deserved penalty because he continued and he was fine but it happens,” summed up Albon.
Here’s how F1 Las Vegas GP panned out
