Even in Japan, we saw a two-faced Williams: on one side, the usual strong performance from Albon; on the other, a struggling Carlos Sainz, still trying to find the right feeling with the car. In the first two races of the season, the British team scored points—more than they had all of last year. Numbers that give hope for a good season, if the same consistency is maintained, but which come from only one side of the garage: that of ‘captain’ Albon. Once again in Suzuka, the Thai driver secured the team’s only points with a ninth-place finish, while his teammate Carlos Sainz appeared to struggle throughout the weekend. The Spaniard picked up a three-place grid penalty for impeding Hamilton in qualifying. As a result, he started from P15 instead of P12 and only managed to recover one position, finishing fourteenth.
Alex Albon: “We experimented, but still brought home points”
Third consecutive points finish for Alex Albon, who brought his Williams home in ninth. Over the weekend, as he admitted, they experimented to find the right setup, which turned out to work better in qualifying. “We tried different gearbox settings throughout the weekend and thought we had finally found something that worked. In the end, it was actually better in qualifying than in the race,” he said after the race. “Also, the car was tricky to drive in these conditions. In Friday’s practice, the wind suited us more, but today it was completely different.” The Thai driver, however, stressed the importance of having secured points for the third straight weekend since the start of the season: “Despite everything, we still came away with points! That shows that even on days when we’re not at our best, we’re still able to get results. From that perspective, I’m very satisfied.”
Carlos Sainz: “Tough race after Saturday, but the race pace was there”
The other side of the coin is Carlos Sainz, still in the process of getting to know the Williams car. His situation in Suzuka was made worse by the three-place penalty following qualifying, after impeding Hamilton in Q2. Instead of starting from P12, he began the race from P15 and only managed to gain one position, finishing in P14: “Unfortunately, as expected, it was a tough race, stuck in traffic after a Saturday that caused a lot of damage, with some details to sort out in qualifying and then the penalty.” It wasn’t all negative: “The positive note is the race pace, which I think was there today. I felt comfortable with the car, I managed to make some good overtakes, and overall I learned a lot out there on track. Now the goal is to carry the positive feeling from this weekend into the next Grands Prix and build from here. Once I start putting all the elements together, I know better results will come. Next stop: Bahrain!”
James Vowles: “Sainz? We didn’t manage everything as we should have”
At the end of the race, Williams team principal James Vowles also spoke: “It’s fantastic to add another two points to our championship tally thanks to another solid, consistent performance from Alex. Virtually all the cars finished in the order of qualifying, and looking back at the weekend, I admit we didn’t manage everything as best as we could with Carlos in traffic yesterday, and that’s our mistake as a team. The positive note is that Carlos’s performance is at a very competitive level, and I’m looking forward to the next two races to see how we perform as a team and whether we can put everything together. It’s clearly an extremely tight championship battle around us, and a few thousandths make all the difference, so we’ll do everything we can to dig deep and find every useful detail for the next races.”
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