“Crazy to say, also just amazing to be able to see the podium – I had George and Max [Verstappen] in my vision, in front of me the whole race without a Safety Car, so yeah that is just testament to the progress we are making at Williams. The track suited up clearly, but very happy.”
Albon later even went so far as to joke that he’d never seen Verstappen from start to finish in a race “even in my Red Bull days.”
With Williams the only midfield team to score in Miami, there could have been much more to enjoy without the disappointment of the Sprint, when Albon finished fourth to earn five points. However, he picked up a time penalty for driving too slowly under the Safety Car, which dropped him down the order and out of the points.
Despite that, the Thai driver was keen to emphasize how well the car had performed across the entire weekend in Miami.
“The car has been feeling quick all weekend, from the very first lap we drove around the track in FP1 I knew it would be a good weekend,” he said. “It’s not going to be like this every weekend, we need to take these moments. It’s why yesterday [The Sprint] was so disappointing – because I thought we might not have a moment again to score points like that.”
While Sainz didn’t quite have the same pace as Albon in the Grand Prix, after the duo swapped positions a handful of times in the early stages, he still came home ninth to bag a points finish of his own. But there were times where more could have been possible as the Spaniard was right on the tail of the two Ferraris and even made contact battling Lewis Hamilton on the final lap.
