'Unhappy' Carlos Sainz left rueing Williams strategy despite P8

Williams driver Carlos Sainz believes he missed out on a big points haul for a second consecutive Formula 1 weekend due to poor race execution.

Sainz qualified a strong sixth for Sunday's race at Imola, one place ahead of teammate Alex Albon, as Williams drivers again mixed with F1's top runners with the FW47.

The Spaniard held firm in the early stages of the race until Williams called him into the pits on lap 11, likely in response to Charles Leclerc’s pitstop.

That strategic call left Sainz behind cars who were yet to pit on a track that is notoriously difficult for overtaking, costing him valuable time in traffic.

The deployment of the virtual safety car on lap 30 also handed some of his direct rivals a ‘cheap pitstop’, although Sainz too stopped again to bolt on a fresh set of tyres.

He eventually crossed the finish line in eighth place, which would have normally been a good result for a midfield team like Williams.

But on a day his teammate Albon proved that a top-five finish was possible for Williams, Sainz was left to lament another missed opportunity to score big points in F1.

“Obviously a bit unhappy right now after another weekend where we have good pace, strong enough to score a top five today,” he told Formula1.com.

“We were quicker than Mercedes, quicker than Ferrari. I honestly felt really good out there the whole weekend. But for some reason, we don’t seem to catch a break on Sundays with the race execution.

“We pitted really early, [I] felt too early at the time and it obviously was too early in the end. We just need to keep making steps forward in understanding each other on Sundays as, at the moment, it is costing us a lot of points.”

Sainz not content with lower end of top-10

After an initial phase of learning, Sainz has quickly got up to speed at Williams, with Imola marking his third successive points-scoring finish.

His results have helped Williams cement fifth place in the constructors’ standings, behind F1’s big four - McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari.

However, with Williams able to take the fight to Mercedes and Ferrari on merit in recent races, Sainz is not content with finishing in the lower regions of the top 10.

“It is strange. If you had told me a few races ago, let alone a year ago, that we would be fighting Mercedes and Ferrari on pure pace at these tracks and that I would be upset with a P8, I would be very happy," he said.

“But now the reality is that we had a car the last two weekends to beat them and we haven’t. And this obviously doesn’t make me very happy as I know we have the potential and the speed to beat these teams in these sorts of tracks. But we don’t seem to execute well on Sundays.

“But it just means as a team we need to improve, we need to keep making our understanding of each other even better to make sure on Sundays we don’t overcomplicate things and, today, I didn’t expect to have to fight back from P15 to P8, which made my life difficult but we managed to do it.”