Carlos Sainz says the Williams Formula 1 team now only leads Cadillac in terms of on-track performance, as team-mate Alexander Albon laments an excessive amount of blue flags.
F1’s new era started just about decently for Williams, which scored 11 points across the first six rounds of the season and lay eighth in the constructors’ standings following the Monaco Grand Prix.
But Sainz finished just 12th in the next round at Barcelona, and since then, no Williams driver has taken any better result than 15th, with the team struggling to get out of Q1.
In Zandvoort, although Albon narrowly made it to Q2 in both qualifying sessions while both Aston Martins were eliminated early on, Fernando Alonso managed a remarkable one-stop strategy on his way to ninth place in Sunday’s race. Meanwhile, Albon and Sainz faltered to the back of the pack.
“We are pretty much where we expected, which is towards the back,” Williams’ Spaniard lamented. “We are only quicker than Cadillac at the moment. You saw the Astons in race pace, they are a different league right now. So we couldn't fight them. We couldn't fight anyone, really.”
“You can't imagine in the middle of the race how many blue flags you get,” Albon added. “I literally mean that every other lap is a blue flag.
“When we pit too early on that first stint, we come out behind a group of midfield cars that we were racing. They all boxed to miss all the blue flags. But because of us pitting early, we had no choice but to take the blue flags. It's like you get dirtier every lap to cars that you're not even trying to race, you're in the marbles. The ones that did box in front of you to miss the blue flags, they've now got new tyres, and they're catching up to three or four seconds a lap because of the blue flags. So, within five laps, the cars that just pitted in front of you are already behind you.”
Here, Albon – who was speaking before he had a chance to look back at the race and its data – was mostly referring to Gabriel Bortoleto. The Brazilian made his second of three pitstops on lap 34, when he was right behind the Anglo-Thai and was just about to get lapped by the leaders. It then took just eight laps for the Audi driver to catch Albon, who indeed was mired in blue flags.
The Williams drivers don’t even believe they will be in contention for points on upcoming tracks that are supposed to suit the Mercedes-powered FW48, Monza and Baku.
“If you look at the last five races, this is where we've been for the last five races. It is where we are,” said Sainz, who scored a podium in Azerbaijan last year.
“We've had a very tough weekend on my side with some consistency of the parts, which haven't allowed me to set up the car correctly for the race. We have to learn from it. There will be some interesting data points to go through as a team with the struggles that I've had. We will be able to, for sure, conclude on them and probably help us to understand better in the future.”
Asked specifically about Monza, Albon added: “It's always a good track for us. Low [downforce], not much combined cornering, so that tends to suit our car. We've got the best power unit on the grid, so it should help us. But I'm not expecting points.”
Williams currently holds ninth place in the standings on 11 points, with Audi ahead on 16 and Aston Martin behind on three.
Additional reporting by Ronald Vording and Stuart Codling
