Carlos Sainz defends his case after contact with Oliver Bearman in F1 Italian GP, as Alexander Albon reckons team order wasn’t required per se.
Williams split strategy between Albon and Sainz in F1 Italian GP at Monza, where the former was on the hard compound starting behind his teammate on the medium. The hard to medium/soft worked well in the end, especially for the Thai who finished seventh after starting 15th.
Sainz was making progress himself. He was in contention for points when battling Haas’ Bearman. He went long on the medium tyre and put himself in the mix, but the contact with the Brit cost him dearly. He had the outside line into Turn 4 and had his axle ahead as well taking the corner.
The stewards deemed that he had his front axle ahead and so had the right to the racing line, which put the onus on Bearman to back out. Since the Brit didn’t back out, they made contact and eventually the Haas driver was handed a 10s time penalty. Sainz defended his case when talking with the media.
The spin ruined their respective races, where they ended up outside the points. Bearman now has 10 penalty points on his superlicense which puts him in danger of a race ban as he is pretty close to 12. His points drop will only happen after the Mexico GP in November, which is four races away.
Race, strategy –
Sainz: “We were doing a good comeback, we were last of the medium starters which I got stuck with the hard starters starting behind me. We tried to emulate by extending the medium, making it look like the hard, probably we were bit on the backfoot, but still committed to that extending and we were on the comeback on the hard, yeah, just an incident there with Ollie in the middle of the comeback. A shame to lose, kind of the terms this year I have been in a collision with another driver.
“Yeah, this time I was not the culprit but not much I can do, we were in the fight for good points and it happened and then I got damage and couldn’t make it back. Before the race, I had the feeling I wanted to start on the hard, but we decided to split, obviously with hindsight now, it was clear that was the best option. But it is what it is, it is racing. I think we both had great race pace, come back to where it is belonging in terms of pace this weekend but definitely the qualifying has cost us a lot.”
What happened –
Sainz: “No, I think I left a car’s width on the inside, it is towards getting a penalty, I braked extremely late on the outside like I don’t think the guy on the inside could brake any later. I think he did and that’s what created a collision. It’s just typical Monza incident. One of the two needs to back out. I was in front at the apex, he decided not to back out of the move and created that collision. Typical Monza.
Bearman: “I haven’t looked fully into it. I need to have a look, but it’s a shame because we were having a good race. I haven’t seen back the incident, it is tough until you watch it back without emotion. I mean, definitely in the points, I was right behind Bortoleto, in front of Hajar. So I think we easily have points on offer today.”
Sainz was also involved in a team game with Albon early in the race. Since they were on different strategy, Williams asked the Spaniard to move aside which he did after understanding the situation. As noted, he would have preferred to have started on the hard tyre as well.
Albon, on the other, thought the team order situation wasn’t required per se. He would have managed without it as well. But he didn’t question the team’s decision in the end and went along with the safer option. He felt pretty good in the car to climb up into the Top 10, which involved a dicey moment with Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Team order –
Albon: “To be honest, I didn’t speak too much. I was just waiting in many ways. We didn’t really need to swap positions in the plan but basically when Carlos was within our reach, he was quick relatively to people who had boxed. That I was even quicker on the harder tyres, in a way it was kind of compromising my race, it is awkward because actually Carlos’ pace proved a point that he was overcutting some cars, you got to let him do his stint. Once we got clean air, we pushed on and I think we handled it well as a team, I don’t think there were any issues there. I definitely wasn’t fighting to have the clean air, I was pretty happy even behind him, it worked out anyways. It was a right move, I think I went half a second quicker once I went past.
“It is hard to know around Monza because you basically…you have such a huge slipstream and you don’t know how much time you make up, the corners offset the slipstream effect if that makes sense. Yeah, I am quicker, but I am fine to chill out here, actually I was also really quicker than I thought I was, once I get in the clear, I made another step. But realistically we just needed clear air because the raw pace of the car has been really good all weekend, you have seen it through practice, once we got clean air we could show that pace and once we could show it, you could see that P7 was quite comfortable race for us.”
Sainz: “No, I needed the perspective, the big picture of the race, of what was happening before we did the move and when they explained, one lap later I let him by.”
Antonelli moment –
Albon: “I was hoping kind of that he would give me space, he didn’t, but it was fine. We had so much pace that I had to use the medium tyre early, I had the grip advantage on him, I was a bit desperate to get him quickly. I think he knew that as well, so we had a bit of a scrap but it was fine.”
Here’s contact between Carlos Sainz and Oliver Bearman: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-italian-grand-prix-sainz-and-bearman-make-contact-and-spin-on-lap-41.1842614571357141392
Here’s how F1 Italian GP panned out