Williams made a promising start to the F1 Italian GP weekend as Carlos Sainz secured P3 in both practice sessions on Friday. Teammate Alex Albon, meanwhile, assured top-10 finishes with P7 each time. Unfortunately, the Williams drivers failed to carry the momentum on Saturday.
Sainz and Albon failed to make it into Q3 in qualifying and only managed P13 and P14, respectively. In their bid to replicate the form from Friday, both drivers needed the help of a well-structured tyre strategy for the Grand Prix on Sunday.
While the duo got off to a good start, the difference in tyre strategies led to the team orders dictating Sainz to let Albon pass.
Albon reacts to team orders at F1 Italian GP
Williams strategists decided to start Sainz on the medium compound tyres, while Albon started on hards. As the race progressed, the Thai driver’s harder compound tyres came alive, giving him a pace edge over his Spaniard counterpart.
Recognising the pace difference, the team asked Sainz on lap 24 to let Albon pass. The #55 followed obliged on the next lap before pitting for a set of hard compound tyres. Speaking after the race, Sainz justified the delay, citing the need to understand the team’s “perspective, the bigger picture”.
Albon, on the other hand, put up an indifferent front. He believed the car was quick, and he was comfortable driving behind Sainz. Although Albon acknowledged the pace difference he experienced after passing Sainz and driving in clean air.
“To be honest, I didn’t speak too much. I was just waiting in many ways. We didn’t really need to swap positions in the plan but basically when Carlos was within our reach, he was quick relatively to people who had boxed,” Albon admitted.
“That I was even quicker on the harder tyres, in a way it was kind of compromising my race. It is awkward because actually Carlos’ pace proved a point that he was overcutting some cars. You got to let him do his stint. Once we got clean air, we pushed on and I think we handled it well as a team. I don’t think there were any issues there. I definitely wasn’t fighting to have the clean air, I was pretty happy even behind him, it worked out anyways. It was a right move. I think I went half a second quicker once I went past.”
Albon admitted that the track layout at Monza made it difficult to gauge whether the slipstream on the long straights is as much of an advantage compared to driving in the clean air. It did not take long for him to know the answer once he passed Sainz.
“It is hard to know around Monza because you basically… you have such a huge slipstream. And you don’t know how much time you make up. The corners offset the slipstream effect if that makes sense. Yeah, I am quicker, but I am fine to chill out here.
“Actually, I was also really quicker than I thought I was once I get in the clear, I made another step. But realistically, we just needed clear air because the raw pace of the car has been really good all weekend. You have seen it through practice, once we got clean air we could show that pace, and once we could show it, you could see that P7 was quite comfortable race for us.”
Albon looks back at Antonelli incident and gives review of his F1 Italian GP
After the pass on Sainz, Albon’s remaining race turned out to be very different from his teammate’s. Both Williams drivers had a heart-in-mouth incident of their own. While Albon came out unscathed, Sainz’s incident robbed him of any chance of scoring points.
The Spaniard was running in P14 behind Ollie Bearman, mounting an attack at the Roggia chicane on lap 41. Going into turn 4, Sainz was ahead, driving the outside racing line. He failed to leave any space for Bearman on the inside, but the rules did not require him to anyway. Resultantly, both drivers spun around after a collision for which Bearman received a 10-second penalty.
Albon’s incident happened a lap later as he was chasing Kimi Antonelli after coming out of the first chicane. The Italian rookie moved over to defend and did not leave enough space for Albon to keep his car on the track.
After briefly running his car into the grass on the straight, Albon braked late in the second chicane to pass Antonelli. Fortunate to have made the move without suffering any damage, the #23 driver absolved the rookie of his offensive move.
“I was hoping kind of that he would give me space, he didn’t, but it was fine. We had so much pace that I had to use the medium tyre early, I had the grip advantage on him, I was a bit desperate to get him quickly. I think he knew that as well, so we had a bit of a scrap but it was fine,” said Albon.
Running in P9 after the incident on medium compound tyres, Albon ultimately finished the race in P7. Glad to have scored six points, Albon lauded the ‘comeback’ from P14 and talked about how the car felt like.
“It was meant to be a tough race on paper and actually as we were the first hard car once everyone pit it was quite a, I don’t want to call it an easy race, but the car was really nice to drive. One of the best Sundays balance-wise I’ve had all year. It always seems like when we run the low-downforce cars our balance improves as well. Many parts of that race we were just as quick as the top teams. Yeah, it was a great comeback from a tough Saturday,” Albon told F1TV.
