Carlos Sainz almost 'disobeyed' Williams order in 'frustrating' Imola

Carlos Sainz almost 'disobeyed' Williams order in 'frustrating' Imola 

Carlos Sainz has explained why he almost "disobeyed" a Williams team order during the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

From sixth on the Imola grid, Sainz was among the batch of drivers to stop early, diving for the pits on Lap 11 to exchange his medium tyres for a set of hards, effectively committing to a two-stopper.

This had the consequence of dropping the likes of Sainz, Oscar Piastri, George Russell and Charles Leclerc back into the midfield traffic, whilst drivers such as Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Alex Albon, Sainz's team-mate ran long for a one-stopper.

These latter drivers benefited from free pit-stops under the virtual and then full safety cars for Esteban Ocon and Kimi Antonelli, with Sainz taking eighth place, as team-mate Albon finished fifth and who felt a podium was not totally out of reach. 

However, reflecting post-race, Sainz detailed how close he came to ignoring the instruction to pit from engineer Gaeten Jago. 

"If I am very honest with you, pitting so early was never in the plan, there was no warning from anyone that we were going to box," Sainz told media including RacingNews365. 

"So when the box call came, I was very close to not boxing and disobeying, but I am a team player and obviously the team has more information than what I have, so I followed the order, just in case there was something happening that I could not see.

"Normally, the tyres go through a phase of feeling really poor and then they recover, and we know how penalising [losing] track position is here, which is what we have up at that stage with Leclerc and the rest of the one-stoppers. 

"It was a surprise, and we definitely need to improve the way we communicate, the way we understand each other on Sundays, that is a strength of mine I need to build with the team. 

"We need to execute Sundays better because with the speed I had this weekend, coming out in eighth place, and when you see Alex in fifth on a normal plan, it is frustrating. 

"We were quicker than Ferrari in Miami, quicker than them [at Imola], and we didn't beat them in Miami and from my side, didn't beat them at Imola, so we need to learn how to beat them. 

"It is better to learn this year, just in case next year, we have an even more competitive car to fight for something really important, but at the same time, we need to see progress this year and have already given up a lot of points"