It was a disappointing F1 North American doubleheader for Williams and James Vowles in the Grands Prix as Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon failed to score a point for the team. In fact, the team has failed to get both drivers in the points at the same race since Monaco, excluding Sprints.
After the Thai and Spanish drivers both scored points in every round from Saudi Arabia through to Monaco, they have not done so since. A combination of driver and strategy errors, one of them underperforming, incidents, and unreliability, has played a large part in it.
Mexico was a perfect example of that. Carlos Sainz had a lot of speed. He qualified P7 but a grid penalty for taking out Kimi Antonelli at COTA put him P12 on the grid. Alex Albon lacked pace and was out in Q1.
In the race itself, contact between Sainz and Lawson at turn 1 as the driver of car #55 had to avoid Ocon ruined his race. Damage to the front wheel sensors meant he sped in the pits twice. A late crash capped a miserable day.
Alex Albon went long on the hards as he did a one-stop. A P12 was the best he could do as he struggled all weekend.
Despite not scoring, they still hold a healthy 39-point lead over Racing Bulls in the battle for P5 in the F1 Constructors’ Championship.
James Vowles reflects on the difficulties for Williams F1 recently
Asked on the Vowles Verdict about the struggles for Williams to get the two cars into the points at the same round, the team principal outlined various reasons why.
Formula 1 has never been closer as the former Mercedes, Brawn and Honda man says. Even just a tenth or two between teammates can lead to a difference of 5 places or more on the grid, particularly in the midfield.
“I think that’s a fair observation.
“It’s actually just not one incident. There were many, many particular bits coming together, be it that on understanding of car set-up, our control systems, incidents in the race, strategy.
“But the reality behind it is this. The field now is separated by eight tenths and what you can see up and down the field is it’s inconsistent where two teammates are. That includes the McLaren [drivers], the large gap between those two.
“And when it’s this tight, a small amount of errors that take place and just to build up, it could be slightly different on set-up. It could be slightly wrong plan that we’re doing, slightly wrong strategy, start to have a very significant impact from that.
“Then further to that, what we did with Alex was we were so far on the back foot that decides to start on a really contra strategy, but that hard tyre just didn’t come into its own. It did not even perform relative to the softer tyres.
“So [we ultimately were] putting Alex in a situation where he wasn’t able to bring the fight back into the field.”
James Vowles on the main focus areas for Williams F1 ahead of the last four rounds
Following a brilliant first half of the season, Alex Albon has faced big struggles recently as Carlos Sainz has properly got up to speed in the FW47. Leaving aside Singapore when both cars got disqualified from qualifying, the last time Albon beaten Sainz on a Saturday was at Spa.
Vowles confirmed there will be a change in direction of set-up for Albon from Brazil. He also hopes Sainz can put together results after showing a lot of pace in Austin and Mexico. While the Spaniard did get a Sprint podium at COTA, a good amount of points got left behind.
“What are we doing going forward, which is the main point behind this? Quite a revision on how we’re going to work with set-up with Alex going forward. I think there’s a good direction that we establish post-Mexico as a result of that.
“With Carlos, the pace has absolutely been there. It’s now about capitalising on that and making sure we execute cleanly over these next few races.”
