Carlos Sainz is sure: even Aston Martin has passed Williams after the Dutch Grand Prix. According to the Spaniard, only Cadillac is worse than the British team in terms of performance on the circuit. Sainz comes to this conclusion after the last Dutch GP, where Fernando Alonso unexpectedly entered the top ten. “We actually couldn’t compete with anyone,” regrets Sainz.
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Williams is having a disappointing season. Expectations were still high after 2025, the year in which Carlos Sainz twice reached the podium for the British team. In Azerbaijan and Qatar, the Madrilenian finished third twice. A season later, Sainz did not finish higher than ninth place.
To make matters worse, the Spaniard also had to watch Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso enter the top ten in Zandvoort. Sainz finished sixteenth, the last driver to cross the finish line. “We are driving almost exactly where we expected, namely at the back,” the Spaniard complained to the media. “At the moment, we are only faster than Cadillac. You have seen the race pace of the Astons; they are currently playing in a completely different class. So we were no match for them. We actually couldn’t compete with anyone.”
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Blue flags
Teammate Alexander Albon adds that both drivers were lapped by one car after another. “You can’t imagine during the race how many blue flags you see,” said the British-Thai driver. “When we made an early pit stop during that first stint, we ended up behind a group of midfield cars we were racing against. They had all pitted to avoid all the blue flags. But because we had made an early pit stop, we had no choice but to accept the blue flags.” Sainz then collided with Albon, causing the British-Thai driver’s race to end prematurely.
Sainz mainly hopes to learn from the difficult race weekend in the dunes. Meanwhile, Albon is already looking forward to Monza. “That is always a good circuit for us. Low downforce, not many consecutive corners, so that usually suits our car well,” he says hopefully. “We have the best power unit (the one from Mercedes, ed.) on the starting grid, so that should help us. But I don’t expect points.”
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Read everything about the Italian GP here
