'You look stupid' - Miami's overshadowed team orders saga

Carlos Sainz has explained how he felt "stupid and powerless" after a team orders incident involving Williams team-mate Alex Albon in the Miami Grand Prix.

Both Williams cars finished in the points in Florida, with Albon fifth and Sainz ninth to move the team onto 37 points from six races - its best return since 66 after the same stage in 2016.

However, there was a flare-up between team orders as Albon overtook Sainz despite the Spanish racer receiving instructions that the pair would form up and try to latch onto the cars ahead shortly before the first pit-stops. 

After the pass into Turn 11 on Lap 14, Albon pulled away to finish 12 seconds ahead of Sainz, who was engaged in a battle with the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton - the over-riding team order incident of the race.

Sainz, who has been out-scored 30-7 by Albon across the season thus far felt aggrieved post-race when questioned about the incident. 

"No," Sainz began when asked by RacingNews365 if there was any frustration at the radio incidents.

"Obviously, if I am told that I am not going to be attacked and we're going to push together, to then be overtaken, always a driver, you feel stupid and powerless, no?

"Because you are playing the good guy, the same way I played the good guy in Jeddah, and you get overtaken and you look completely stupid. 

"But it is the way it goes, we'll talk about it, and I'm sure we will come out of it better as a team. 

"At the start, I did pick up some damage from Alex, then he made a mistake and I managed to pass him, and the team told us that we were going to freeze positions, and I don't know if he got the message but he basically overtook me, and from then on in the first stint, I just tried everything to stay in contact with the group ahead."

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Bad radio timing

As for Albon, he revealed that he got the message just as he was sizing a move on the Spanish racer.

Onboard footage shows that just as he was lining Sainz up, engineer James Urwin told him to hold position to manage a water pressure issue, but upon being informed by Albon he was passing Sainz, Urwin replied "Ok, crack on then."

Providing his version of events, Albon felt it was just bad timing for the message to be delivered from the team. 

"It was in the exact moment of the message," he said of his overtake.

"If we had stayed together a little longer, then I would have been told that, but at that time, we were still free to race.

"It was just a delay between the two cars being told, but we had really strong pace on my side, although I struggled for the first couple of laps.

"I thought I had damage from the Turn 3 incidents, so I took it easy and had some snaps and was just offsetting my focus a little bit.

"But once I got into the rhythm of the race, we were really quick and proved that we were strong."