James Vowles addresses Alex Albon-Carlos Sainz collision at Dutch GP

Williams team principal James Vowles has admitted the Grove outfit must shoulder some of the blame for the late-race collision between Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz at the Dutch Grand Prix.

During a chaotic race at Zandvoort, won by McLaren's Lando Norris, the two Williams drivers came together on track while battling outside the points-paying positions.

Speaking in the team's post-race video debrief, The Vowles Verdict, the Williams boss addressed the frustrating incident.

"As you saw, Alex and Carlos came together on track," Vowles explained. "There's a lot of questions around whose fault it is, whose isn't it? I'll start with this. I think with our two drivers, both have a responsibility to not hit each other.

"It's hard to do it as a majority to one or the other, but both have a culpability in that. This particular circumstance, actually, I think we as a team have a culpability."

The issue, according to Vowles, stemmed from the pitwall's decision to leave Sainz out on worn tyres during the virtual safety car period.

"We tried leaving Carlos out at that VSC. The reason why was because had we stopped, he would have been behind Alex and Franco anyway. So you're back net to where you would have been before, without the pace to be able to overtake them.

"But that said, this also put our cars into a situation where they were fighting tooth and nail for no points on track. That's not a situation we should be putting them in either."

While Albon retired from the race after the incident, Sainz went on to finish 16th. 

Sainz was handed a 10-second penalty for the incident, which he described as "fair" after the race. 

"Fair penalty. I had a bit of a surprise when I went to defend," the Spaniard explained. "I had really worn hard tyres, struggling a lot with the car, with the pace of the race.
 
"And when I went to brake on the inside, there was a massive bump on the inside of Turn 1. When you are further in the inside, the bigger it gets. I just hit with the plank.
 
"I had the front tyres in the air. And as soon as I touched the brake, I locked up and I took Alex with me, which is the worst possible outcome for that race, because it's not like we were fighting for anything big. But honestly, it caught me so much by surprise. Apologies to him, because it's the last thing I wanted." 

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