Carlos Sainz finished eighth at the Imola GP but wasn’t entirely satisfied with his race with Williams. He started sixth, ahead of his teammate, but crossed the finish line having lost two positions. By contrast, Alexander Albon finished fifth, just behind Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.
The #55’s race was affected by an early pit stop on lap 11, when he switched to a set of hard tyres. This indicated that Williams had planned a two-stop strategy for him.
Carlos Sainz wasn’t the only one: Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, and George Russell suffered the same fate and rejoined the track in traffic. The ones who benefited were Alex Albon, Lando Norris, and Imola GP winner Max Verstappen, who all enjoyed a “free” pit stop thanks to the Safety Car.
Carlos Sainz revealed he had considered a one-stop strategy and was on the verge of ignoring the Williams team order to pit. “To be honest, pitting that early wasn’t part of our plan,” he told the media after the race.
“No one warned us we would be coming in. When the time came to box, I was really tempted to disobey. However, I’m a team player and of course the team has more information than I do. So I followed the order, in case something was happening that I couldn’t see,” he explained.
Once back on track, “normally, the tyres go through a phase where they’re really bad and then come back,” continued the Spaniard. “We know how costly it is to lose track position here. And that’s exactly the phase we found ourselves in, along with [Charles] Leclerc and the others who went for a one-stop.”
Carlos Sainz admitted he was “surprised,” stressing the importance of improving communication within the team: “We need to play our cards better on Sundays because, with the pace I had this weekend, finishing eighth, and when you see Alex in fifth with normal pace, it’s frustrating. We were faster than Ferrari in Miami, faster than them [at Imola]. We didn’t beat them in Miami and, on my side, we didn’t beat them in Imola. We need to learn how to beat them.”
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