Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon both scored for Williams in Saudi Arabia to lift their team back above Haas into fifth in the standings. Sainz recorded his strongest finish of the season with eighth as he came home ‘best of the rest’ while Albon was hot on his heels in ninth.
The Spaniard had admitted after Bahrain that he lost positions there fighting the wrong cars, but he atoned for that in Jeddah, picking and choosing his battles from sixth on the grid. He wasted no time fighting former team mate Lando Norris, but might have battled Lewis Hamilton harder were it not for a slightly slow pit stop.
There were also some team tactics in play under the lights, Sainz expertly backing up to ensure his team mate behind had the Drag Reduction System (DRS) with which to defend from Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bulls – the duo working well together to bring home the maximum they could in terms of points.
Sainz recorded his best result of the season with a run to eighth in Saudi Arabia
“I think today, honestly, we managed to nail a very good race and on top of that managed to help Alex to make sure he was getting in the points,” said Sainz.
“So, very happy we managed to execute a very good race, even though the pit stop for the first time in the year [was] a bit compromised, a bit slow. We managed to push on, push forward and I did a very quick last lap showing the pace I had today was very good.”
It seems Sainz has turned a corner since his early struggles to get on top of the FW47, in Bahrain showing good pace until a collision ended his race while here he was able to hold his own in the top 10.
“It was definitely a challenging start to the season, but it was always going to be with the adaption process,” he added. “I always warned it was not going to be easy, and I took it step by step, to be in race five at the level that I am… if I keep the philosophy I’m taking, I think we are going in the right direction.”
Albon grabbed ninth for Williams at the end of a hot and humid race
As for Albon, he had been left disappointed after failing to make Q3 on Saturday despite showing strong pace throughout practice. But starting 11th on the grid, he managed to climb to ninth – and afterwards explained that using his team mate’s DRS as a defence mechanism had always been on the cards.
“After yesterday looked a bit bleak, let’s just say, the team did a great job and turned it around,” Albon said.
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“We played it safe to create the DRS train to ensure that Isack didn’t overtake us. If we got left alone, I think Carlos and I had a bit better pace than we showed there.
“But we talked about this strategy, it got brought up in the strategy meeting – actually more with Pierre [Gasly], because Pierre was going to have good race pace today. But then obviously Isack [Hadjar] took his place, and we did the same thing, so very happy.”
Williams have returned to fifth in the Teams’ Championship on 25 points, five ahead of Haas – the Grove-based team having already amassed significantly more points than they managed across the entirety of 2024.
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