REPORT: Moves Made on a Mixed Day in Montreal

It was a mixed day for Atlassian Williams Racing, but we ultimately walked away from Montreal with one more point added to our tally.

From his P16 grid spot, Carlos Sainz managed his tyres well to climb the order, ultimately securing P10 at the chequered flag. For Alex Albon, a mechanical issue midway through the Grand Prix forced him to retire.

At lights out, Alex was immediately battling with former teammate, Franco Colapinto. Our No. 23 had to dive across the grass at Turn 8, dropping him three spots to P12. Carlos had enjoyed a clean getaway, initially claiming P15 before dropping back to P16 at the end of the opening tour.

In the early stages, our pair were trapped in an eight-car DRS train, with Alex running the Medium compound and Carlos on the Hards and going long on their first stints.

Alex made our first stop on Lap 23, but only after slipping back through the pack as the yellow-walled tyre grip struggled to hold on. Carlos was one of the drivers who crept up to Albono’s rear wing, and the teamwork to not fight when exiting Turn 2 helped Carlos stay in the hunt for points.

Emerging in P20 on Hards, Alex spent his second stint chasing down Lance Stroll, who boxed one lap later than our No23. Meanwhile, Carlos continued to take his tyres deep into the race as he hunted Esteban Ocon as compatriot Fernando Alonso followed behind, eventually passing on fresher rubber.

The race settled down a little with Carlos running in P10 but yet to stop and Alex joining the end of a long train of F1 cars behind the two Saubers. Frustratingly, though, Albono’s time in Canada ended amid a battle with Pierre Gasly when power unit misfires halted his attack.

Pulling off at the hairpin after cruising around the circuit for a lap, Alex retired his FW47 for the second race in succession to become the first DNF of this year’s Canadian GP.

Now the sole Williams hope, Carlos fought off Nico Hulkenberg for as long as possible after the Sauber caught our Spaniard on tyres much younger than Carlos’.

The one-stop strategy patience finally paid off for car 55 when the pit wall brought Carlos in on Lap 59 to switch to the Mediums and emerged back on track in P11.

With points in sight, Carlos set about chasing Esteban Ocon to reach the top-10 positions, but a late-race Safety Car stopped any hopes of passing the Frenchman. Lando Norris had hit Oscar Piastri to trigger the slowdown, and the McLaren could not continue, gifting Carlos a place to pick up a fifth top-10 finish in six races.

“Well done, Carlos. Really strong pace today,” were the words from James Vowles over the radio as Carlos crossed the line.

“Well done for fighting through all of that. Obviously, it's all yesterday where we didn't get it right, but I'm optimistic for our future.”

"Good to at least score one point today, but I’m pretty frustrated as I spent the race managing an issue, so I couldn’t even compete properly," Carlos shared after the race.

"We did a good job to bring the car home and save a point but, as a team, we need to avoid these situations.

"We didn’t show our maximum potential this weekend for one reason or the other and with such a tight field, it obviously affects the final outcome. We’ll regroup and go back at it again in Europe in a couple of weeks."

"It’s been a frustrating one today," Alex reflected. "We retired with the PU issue, but the race was already over for us. I struggled on the first lap, and then we tried to make a one stop work, but with the graining today it was really hard to manage the tyres.

"Sometimes you can drive around it but not today. Race strategy is also something we are usually strong at, but we struggled today and that’s not to blame the team, but it just wasn’t quite there, so we’ll have a look at it and come back stronger next time."

James Vowles, concluded our reaction by adding: "A really strong race from Carlos. He showed great race pace under difficult circumstances, managing a number of aspects of the car, and he did a brilliant job to come home and bring another valuable point to the team.

"After Alex got pushed back at the start, his race was a lot more difficult. Ultimately it was a DNF, which we need to understand, but he had potential to fight back through the field again and pick up points.

"What it demonstrates is we need perfect weekends executed against this very tight midfield in order to score points and we haven't been executing as well as we could do. However, still an important point today for our Championship battle."