Williams drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon didn’t manage to secure a top ten start for the F1 Italian GP in Monza. Unfortunately, the tyre heating and usage issues which have been marring the season of the Grove-based team this time stroke down both drivers.
Sainz is downbeat
Carlos Sainz, who hasn’t been able to score a single point in the past 5 races, was rather frustrated about the situation as he went into further details on the reasons behind his starting P13.
”Yeah unfortunately we keep having this randomness, this lottery factor of getting front and rear to work at the same time. Yesterday I was here in the TV pen and everyone was very excited about seeing me third, but I said we were running a bit light.”
However, unluckily the Williams driver’s rather strong Friday performance was useless on the following day of the F1 Italian GP. In fact, the lack of time to properly prepare the car severely affected the former Ferrari driver’s afternoon.
“Not only that, we had 5 or 6 laps to get the soft to put it exactly on the window where it gives the right balance to our car and that seems to give us 2 or 3 tenths. The problem in Q1 and Q2 is that you get one lap with the tyre and very rarely we actually get both axles and the balance of the tyres to work for us and we struggle a lot.”
A 2025 issue, not just track specific
The Spaniard is increasingly frustrated with his Qualifying issues, which have even kept him in Q1 for several times.
“We struggled yesterday on the first lap of the tyres. That’s why I was a bit concerned going into today. We struggled in FP3 on the first lap of the tyres, and in Quali on the first lap of the tyres. We never seemed to do a good enough lap, but every weekend I learn something and I can give feedback to the team about what I think it is. You will see us hopefully improving it because at the moment it’s what’s holding two experienced guys like Alex and me back with this randomness in Qualy.”
Another great topic for Sainz was the collision with Liam Lawson which had marred his Zandvoort race. The attempted move on the outside led to the Williams driver receiving a 10 seconds time penalty and 2 penalty points, and has now been appealed by his team.
Zandvoort drama can now rest
Sainz didn’t open up on the question, citing the pending situation.
“At the moment we cannot discuss it much because it’s under investigation and so there’s not a possibility to actually open the debate and the discussion. There was some attempt to do and it was pretty clear what everyone thought in that room.”
“Yeah, it was a very positive meeting. At the same time, no one’s going to take away the 10 seconds in a race for poor decision or poor judgement and that’s why we need to get better to avoid these kind of mistakes from happening.”
Sainz, on the other hand, wants to leave this situation behind and only focus on the upcoming F1 Italian GP as a new fresh chance to score points.
“To be honest, it’s left my mind now. I’m not bothered too much. I wish they could take away the two penalty points on my licence because I don’t deserve two penalty points. Even less I deserve 10 seconds in a race but that’s the way it goes. Tomorrow I can race and forget that chapter.”
Finally, he bashed away the rumours of him cutting the line in the final segment of qualifying.
“I didn’t jump the queue, I just joined the queue from where I was joining where I turned into joining the queue just in case they would consider I jumped, I left one car by but as long as I have one tyre on the fast lane, I’m able to do that.”
Albon is struggling as well
On the other side of the garage, Alex Albon remarked the tyre issues he encountered during Q2, which led to his starting P14 as a Williams driver in the F1 Italian GP .
“All year it has been tyres. Most of the times this year, at most of the tracks there has been one of us who was able to just get in the window. This weekend… I think we tried absolutely everything in terms of outlaps, prep laps, and could never get it to work. What you see in free practise is us do push laps, try to get on the first lap, it’s never ready on the first lap, do two cool down laps, we go again, the tyres get hotter, it starts to work a bit more, it feels good.”
Unfortunately, in the much faster paced grid setting session, there’s not enough time to do such tyre preparation.
“Qualifying, you have the minimum delta times you have to respect. You’re basically forced into making it first lap. We can’t seem to get that tyre to bite. You have to imagine that for me to get the tyre to work I have to… I got way bridged in Q2, so I basically have to get sent out in the middle of everyone’s push laps to guarantee myself a clear outlap, and an outlap that’s maybe 15 seconds quicker than everyone else’s.”
No time to heat
“And then I don’t even get the outlap I want because I have to let all the cars pass who are on their push lap. Then, by the time I go into Turn 1 I have to overtake six cars during my lap. So, ifs, buts and maybes. In the end, the problem is the tyre and the fact that we have to be so different for everyone.”
The British Thai driver finds the issue rather frustrating as well, as it’s preventing him and his teammate from unleashing the full potential of the FW47.
“We cannot join everyone else out the pit lane and do the same thing as them. And so, yeah, it’s frustrating but it’s what we have. I don’t think we should focus it so much on tyres, it could also be the way that our car just, in terms of geometry or whatever, we need to investigate why.”
He went on to suggest potential areas which might affect the excessive tyre sensitivity, and ways to improve the situation.
“Maybe we’re just not putting the load into the tyre like other teams are. Maybe also we’re just a bit more sensitive in terms of, we know our cars are like people and we know it’s wind sensitive. Maybe it’s also a bit tyre sensitive for us.Yeah, not contesting.”
Monza was never going to be an easy one for Williams.
Asked on how predictable tyre wear situations can be for him and his Williams teammate, Albon admitted they had known beforehand that the F1 Italian GP was going to be a hard one.
“Honestly, it’s maybe a bit more circumstantial.There’s been a few races in a row where we have metrics of what tracks we’re going to struggle with the tyres and what not. Monza is one of the top ones on the list. From the beginning of the weekend, before FP1, we kept talking about tyres being an issue a bit and it was.”
“We’re going to go to Baku next race and that’s going to be the same problem.We’re going to go to a few more. We do need to try and come up with some solutions.Maybe we had a bit more pace advantage in the beginning of the year, so that the Q1s and the Q2s, even when the tyres weren’t ready, we could still get through.”
Much love for the team
Regardless of the situation, Albon wanted to highlight the fact that he doesn’t think his team to be at fault for the issue, praising the proactive approach they have been having.
“It’s at a level now at the midfield where if you’re looking for tenths to get through to Q3, then if the tyres aren’t ready, that’s immediately you’re out. I think as a team we’re doing a great job. The investigation and the work being done behind the scenes to try to figure out what to do has been… I can’t fault the team.”
“We’ve had two cars relentlessly trying different things all weekend.Even in qualifying we had split strategies. If you look at what we did with the tyres, we were using used tyres even in Q1 to try to get through. We just haven’t found the carrot or the silver bullet.”
Positive feeling for the race
The former Red Bull driver couldn’t find any faults in Williams’ preparation of the specific F1 Italian GP , which leaves him rather confident for the actual race.
“I think the way that we approached this weekend was correct as well. We actually tried to make it hard for ourselves in free practise to try to simulate qualifying and it still wasn’t for good. We have a quick car, you’re right, and in a race the tyres get hot and they actually work. I think we’re going to be okay. It’s just one-stop DRS trains that I worry about.Maybe with the strategy we can do something.”
