Carlos Sainz has shouldered the blame for making contact with his Williams partner Alex Albon in Zandvoort, which netted him a nominal 10-second penalty.
Sainz was defending from Albon four laps before the end of the Zandvoort race when Albon attempted to pass the Spaniard round the outside of Turn 1. On the inside Sainz locked up his front tyres, which sent him in a straight line off the track, trading a glancing blow with his team-mate.
In the collision, the side of Albon’s floor sustained damage, forcing the Thai driver to pit, while Sainz was hit with a straightforward 10-second penalty.
“It was a fair penalty,” Sainz admitted. “I had a bit of a surprise when I went to defend. I had really worn hard tyres, struggling a lot with the car, with the pace of the race. And when I went to brake on the inside, there was a massive bump in the inside of Turn 1. The further you are on the inside, the bigger it gets.
“As soon as I touched the brakes, I locked up and I took Alex with me, which is the worst possible outcome for that race, because it’s not like we were fighting for anything big. But honestly, it caught me so much by surprise. Apologies to him, because it’s the last thing I wanted.”
By that point both Williams drivers were languishing at the bottom of the order in 15th and 16th in their uncompetitive car, only ahead of Cadillac’s Sergio Perez, so Albon didn’t make a big deal of the blue-on-blue incident.
Alexander Albon and Carlos Sainz, Williams
Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT Images via Getty Images
“It’s not a Verstappen and Ricciardo, it’s less serious than that,” he pointed out, referring to an infamous collision between the two former Red Bull drivers at the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“It was simply on him. I saw him lock up, so I immediately tried to follow him in a straight line. But we made contact, and my floor was pretty damaged, so we had to box.”
Albon was more frustrated by what felt like a wasted opportunity for Williams to score its first points in over two months, with the team last finding the top 10 at the Monaco Grand Prix in early June. Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso did score points in an improved Aston Martin by making a one-stop strategy work and claiming an unexpected ninth place.
“The biggest frustration is the race itself, because I think we were in a good race,” Albon said.
“We were in front of Fernando for most of that race. Maybe not with this pace, but I think we boxed too early. We came out behind a group of seven or eight cars. I need to understand why we boxed so early, because we genuinely had a chance to score points today.”
Additional reporting by Stuart Codling
