Alex Albon rues Safety Car triggered by Carlos Sainz incident: “We were unlucky” | F1 Bahrain GP. Alex Albon misses out on points after Safety Car disrupts Bahrain strategy.

After the first three rounds of the season ended with at least one Williams driver in the points, the Bahrain Grand Prix broke the team’s positive streak. A top-10 finish still seemed within reach for Alexander Albon, who looked close to scoring points for the fourth time in this championship, but his chances were dashed by the Safety Car deployment following the retirement of his teammate Carlos Sainz, whose contact with Yuki Tsunoda turned strategy plans upside down.

Just bad luck
As a result, the Anglo-Thai driver still finished just outside the top ten, but could do no better than 12th place: “We were unlucky. Points were up for grabs, our race pace was really strong and we had a really good first and second stint. Then we got a bit unlucky with the Safety Car and had to double stack, which cost us a couple of positions. Overall though, I’m still happy: we’ve learned a lot of lessons we can take forward for the rest of the year.”

A promising race
The relationship between Williams and Carlos Sainz doesn’t seem to be taking off, even though the Spaniard completed his first laps at Sakhir with the Grove team last year in the post-season tests. So far, Carlos Sainz has only scored points in China with a 10th place finish (achieved only after Ferrari’s disqualification) and did not finish the race in Bahrain due to sidepod damage sustained from the contact with Yuki Tsunoda, which triggered the Safety Car: “A frustrating end to a promising race,” he explained. “After a good start, I wore out my Soft tyres fighting hard and trying to stay in DRS range of the faster cars around me. Once the Soft stint ended, we stopped and made up places with good overtakes. Unfortunately, the incident with Yuki cost us the race. The impact to my right sidepod caused significant damage and that was it for me. Despite the final result, there are many positives to consider. We had good pace all weekend and could have been in the points today, so we’ll take it as it is and look at how to come back stronger next week in Saudi Arabia.” – the former Ferrari driver concluded.