Vowles clarifies Albon-Sainz Miami mix-up: No team orders ignored

Last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix left Williams grappling with internal tensions as Carlos Sainz expressed frustration over what he believed was a breach of team orders by teammate Alex Albon.

Sainz, who finished ninth after dropping four places behind Albon, was vocal about his irritation, claiming Albon’s Lap 11 overtake disregarded instructions to hold position.

Williams team principal James Vowles, however, has stepped in to set the record straight, denying any defiance on Albon’s part and attributing the incident to a communication breakdown within the team.

Sainz Caught Off Guard by Albon

The drama unfolded on Lap 11 when Albon surged past Sainz down the back straight into Turn 11. Sainz, who had been informed that positions would remain unchanged, was caught off guard.

His frustration was palpable after the race on the radio on the cooldown lap, where he admitted to having “lost confidence.”

Later, he claimed the incident made him “look stupid,” believing Albon had ignored a direct team order. The Spaniard’s race had already been compromised by a Lap 1 clash with Albon, which damaged his FW47 and hampered his pace throughout the event.

Vowles, addressing the situation, explained that the confusion was rooted in a poorly executed communication strategy rather than Albon acting against team interests.

“A message was communicated to both race engineers, effectively that Alex had a reliability problem and we needed to get some air into the radiators,” Vowles said.

“That was communicated to both with the decision of just making a little gap between the cars for the time being to make sure we do that.”

The intent was to manage Albon’s car temperature, but the messaging lacked clarity. The instructions, as relayed to the drivers, created confusion.

• Read also: Albon celebrates ‘amazing’ P5 in Miami, Sainz rues missed opportunity

“However, that message wasn’t clear in its construct. It wasn’t even clear on whether overtaking was possible or not,” Vowles admitted.

“The primary function is getting the car cool to move forward.” While Sainz was told, “Alex won’t attack you,” Albon received a similar message prohibiting an overtake, but only after he had already initiated the move.

“To Alex that same message was communicated that he isn’t to overtake Carlos, but only [once] his DRS was open and he was effectively alongside Carlos completing the overtake,” Vowles clarified.

Vowles Takes Responsibility and Outlines Next Steps

Vowles was quick to absolve Albon of blame, emphasizing that the fault lay with the team’s processes.

“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,” he stated.

He reassured that such an error would be addressed, vowing, “What I can assure everyone is it simply won’t happen again.”

Adding context to the team’s strategy, Vowles revealed that Williams had been prepared to swap the drivers’ positions later in the race, prioritizing Albon’s stronger pace as Sainz’s car, already compromised from the Lap 1 incident, was deteriorating further.

“Even once we had stabilised them, we more than likely would have very quickly inverted the cars,” Vowles noted.

“The reason behind that is Carlos had sustained damage from that lap one incident and it was getting worse and worse.

“We could see the floor was deteriorating, that’s part of the reason why Alex was getting closer and closer to him and able to re-overtake. The loss was really mounting into a couple of tenths by this point.”

Had the race progressed without the communication mishap, Vowles indicated that the team would have made a collective decision to prioritize Albon, who ultimately finished fifth.

“So more than likely we would have done that, but again that would be a team decision rather than a driver not expecting to be attacked,” he explained.

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