Carlos Sainz, and Williams, worried by Alpine
Williams had an encouraging weekend in Bahrain and seems to be the « best of the rest ». Nevertheless, Alpine's fine performance has Carlos Sainz worried.
Williams is currently fighting to be the best behind the four major forces – McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari. Sixth in the constructors’ standings, it has 19 points to its credit, which is more than what it scored throughout the entire previous season.
On its part, Alpine started the year in a less spectacular fashion by not scoring any points in the first three Grand Prix. This weekend, however, the French team showed a completely different side.
The team got back into the fight thanks to Pierre Gasly, who showed a considerable pace to qualify in fifth position. The Frenchman then moved up to fourth place following a grid penalty to Kimi Antonelli, before finishing in seventh position, losing sixth place after a last-lap overtake by Max Verstappen of Red Bull. His teammate, rookie Jack Doohan, narrowly missed a top 10 spot during qualifying, with a 0.017-second gap to the second Red Bull, driven by Yuki Tsunoda.
Carlos Sainz, who scored only one point in four races, believes that Alpine’s pace in Bahrain can be a source of concern. While he prefers to first highlight the strengths of his weekend, he acknowledges that it was not enough to get ahead of Alpine and enter the top 10.
I got two good starts in a row with this car. I attacked the first lap well, I had a good rhythm. The Alpine was just too fast for us, and when you have the top eight cars plus the two Alpines, that makes up the top 10 positions, and I was there between P11 and P10, fighting for my life. We just weren’t fast enough, he explained on the sidelines of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The season is just starting and Alpine still needs to confirm that this good pace was not an exception. Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, says he is confident about the future of Williams.
« We are on the right track. We hope that the weekends will string together a bit more, and at the same time, we still need to improve the car to see if we can catch up with Gasly and Doohan with the Alpine, because [in Bahrain] they seemed to be in a different league more than in ours.
