What Happened Between Sainz and Albon in Miami? Vowles Explains
May 12 – James Vowles has hit reverse gear after suggesting Alex Albon ignored team orders in Miami.
During the race, Albon was told to hold station behind his Williams teammate Carlos Sainz – but immediately overtook the Spaniard.
“You told me he’s been told,” Sainz hit back on the radio. “I know,” race engineer Gaetan Jego replied. “Let’s be the bigger one, ok?”
Sainz, though, continued to voice his fury.
“That’s not how I go racing, guys,” the former Ferrari driver said. “I don’t care. I’ve lost a lot of confidence here on everything.”
It was at that point that team boss Vowles jumped on the radio to reassure his star driver. “I agree with you,” the Williams team boss told Sainz.
“We need proper engagement from him,” he added, presumably referring to Albon.
However, a week after the fact, Vowles is now hitting reverse gear, explaining that both drivers’ race engineers were told that Albon had a cooling issue and needed clean air.
“That message wasn’t clear in its construct,” Vowles said. “It wasn’t even clear on whether overtaking was possible or not. The primary function is getting the car cool to move forward.
“To Carlos, the message was communicated ‘Alex won’t attack you’, and to Alex that same message was communicated that he isn’t to overtake Carlos, but his DRS was open and he was effectively alongside Carlos completing the overtake.
“So this isn’t Alex going against team orders, this is on us as a team, as an organisation, to significantly tighten up how we communicate to the engineers and how quickly we communicate to the drivers,” Vowles added.
“What I can assure everyone is it simply won’t happen again.”
As for Sainz’s alarming radio message revealing that he had “lost confidence” in the team, Vowles says he fully understands the frustration.
“I’d be disappointed if we didn’t have drivers being frustrated by what happens out on track,” he said. “They’re giving their heart and soul to it, so in the case of Carlos he was there fighting for a fifth place on merit.
“His passion is exactly why I want him in this team and in the car.”
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