Williams Racing and James Vowles enjoyed a rather strong finish to their 2025 F1 Dutch GP, despite the setbacks on Carlos Sainz’s side of the garage due to his 10-second time penalty. Williams still managed to walk away with valuable points on Alex Albon‘s side of the garage to add to their tally, in what has become an extremely tight midfield battle. However, the weekend wasn’t entirely smooth for Vowles and his team with Saturday’s Qualifying session leaving both of his drivers disappointed.
Both Sainz and Albon felt that the team’s struggles with tyre temperature sensitivity costed them the chance of achieving stronger results. Sainz, who was the sole Williams who made it into Q3, managed to secure himself a P9 start for Sunday’s race. However, a significant blow to their weekend came from Sainz’s penalty for his incident with Liam Lawson, which proved costly for the team.
This season, it has often been the case that only one side of the Williams garage delivers strong results, while the other struggles. In his weekly post-weekend debrief, Vowles addressed the stewards’ decision and reflected on the incident that occurred on-track.
“It was a racing incident” says Vowles on Sainz and Lawson’s on-track scrap
It’s fair to say that the Spaniard’s 10-second time penalty left, including Vowles himself, baffled. When informed over the radio during the race, it was evident that Sainz also disagreed with the decision. After the race, Vowles explained that Sainz had visited the stewards to gain a clearer understanding of the incident.
“And it’s a really good question. It’s one that really caught me off guard in the race. And you can see subsequently, Carlos and I chatted about it, and Carlos then went up to see the stewards to have a discussion over what had happened, why they interpreted it that way, and more importantly, what does the future look like? Because for us, we weren’t outside the boundaries of racing.”
After reviewing, Vowles stated that it was a clear racing incident and that neither driver should’ve been penalised for the incident.
“My review of the incident, both now and even live during the race, was the following. It was a racing incident. I don’t think either one deserved a penalty. Carlos wasn’t trying to overtake at that point. He was trying to put his car alongside to put, essentially, Lawson on a compromised line to create opportunity later on.”
Neither driver should be blamed for the incident
Vowles explained that it was due to the wake of the Ferrari ahead that likely caused Lawson to lose control of his car momentarily. This meant, he laterally moved across unintentionally into Sainz. He emphasised that the incident wasn’t the Spaniard’s fault—noting that the stewards’ interpretation of the incident didn’t take into account the unpredictability of Lawson’s movement.
Vowles said: “With Lawson himself, you can see him looking in his mirrors, and as he does so, effectively, he gets a snap in the car. So, he laterally moves across the track into Carlos, not because his intention is to drive into him, but because for a brief moment, he lost control of the car, I think due to the wake of the Ferrari ahead. But that isn’t Carlos’s fault in that circumstance, particularly.
“Now, what the stewards had deemed, I believe, is that under the racing guidelines and rules, the car on the inside, the car ahead has the priority of the corner and can wash out wide. That’s fine. I think that’s different to the situation where a car effectively had a snap and moved across laterally in an unpredictable manner.”
