The ‘race’ with Alonso
This year’s Spanish Grand Prix was particularly awaited by Carlos Sainz, the Madrid native ready to compete in the first race in his city. However, the weekend ended sadly from a sporting point of view for the Williams driver, forced to retire after receiving a penalty. The former Ferrari driver was indeed involved in a duel for 17th place precisely with his compatriot Fernando Alonso, in a derby where there are no post-race controversies over the maneuver carried out by Sainz against the two-time world champion.
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The reasons for the KO
Following the start, the Madrid driver’s car suffered damage that forced him in the following laps to return to the pits to retire: “It was a more difficult weekend than expected here in Madrid – he explained – I had a great start, gaining positions at the start, but I went wide at turn 1 and had contact with Tsunoda. From that moment on, the damage to the floor severely compromised the aerodynamic load, making it impossible to keep the car on track for the rest of the race and forcing us to retire. Regarding the penalty: two cars cannot pass simultaneously in that corner and, being in front, I could do very little. It’s a disappointing way to finish the first race on this circuit, but after all scoring points would have been almost impossible for us. The fans were amazing from start to finish and I felt their support throughout the weekend. The track is fantastic and, being the first year, I think the event was overall a great success. Work will be needed to create better overtaking opportunities. Looking ahead to Baku, I hope the updates will allow us to fight more closely with the cars ahead of us and to become more competitive again.”
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And indeed, the direct confirmation from Williams regarding the impossibility of aiming for the top ten came from Alex Albon, 15th: “It was a tricky race and a difficult weekend for us, but I think this was probably the best result we could hope for today. Beating both Aston Martins and one of the Haas cars is the best we could realistically achieve; this is the result reached today. We are still too far behind to really compete with the midfield group and it was tough out there. A package of updates will arrive in Baku: hopefully it will allow us to gain ground on the midfield rivals and at least get into the fight. Realistically, it may not be enough to make a decisive leap forward, but unfortunately our priority has already shifted to next year. This season the midfield teams have introduced more updates than usual and the development race is frantic: it’s an aspect we are working on to improve.” Williams confirms its moment of great crisis: just like Haas, it has not scored points since the Monaco GP, and is now 9th in the Constructors’ Championship, 6 points behind Audi.
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