REPORT: P7 and Points in Vegas

Atlassian Williams Racing returned to points-scoring ways after 50 laps of the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, with Carlos Sainz scoring a well-deserved P7 finish.

That result extends the gap in the World Constructors' Championship from our P5 position to P6 to 29 points as we enter the final two rounds.

Carlos' P3 start after his qualifying efforts in Friday's rain helped him remain in contention among the traditional front-running cars, and he was easily the best of the midfield challengers.

Sadly, it was a Saturday to forget for Alex Albon, who had no radio communications, picked up damage early on, and eventually retired from the race on Lap 35.

Opening-lap battles affected the front of the field for Carlos, as a fight between the front row had him needing to hang back, allowing George Russell to attack and claim P3.

For Alex, a collision between Gabriel Bortoleto and Lance Stroll had him locking his tyres to avoid contact, and he navigated through the carnage to sit P15 before an early VSC slowed the pack down.

As Carlos settled into a P4 slot and extended the gap to the chasing VCARB of Isack Hadjar behind, Alex was going wheel-to-wheel racing with Lewis Hamilton for P12 after others pitted with damage.

A high-speed jink down the Strip lost Alex his front wing end plate, and he promptly boxed. The pit crew were unaware of the damage, however, and he needed to return to the pits one lap later to replace the front wing, dropping him to the back of the pack.

The Virtual Safety Car slowed down the drivers again, this time to allow for the debris of Alex's front wing to be collected from the track, but it would be the final interruption of the race.

Carlos now had Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri as his focus behind, with Hadjar falling behind. The Ferrari got close to the FW47's rear wing before our strategists called our No.55 in for his first stop on Lap 22.

He returned to track battling Piastri, who ran the undercut to get ahead, and Leclerc's extra pace in clear air also had the Monegasque past Carlos on track.

The order left Andrea Kimi Antonelli, an early stopper in the first VSC, in P4, but carrying a five-second penalty for a false start. Mercedes' teenager kept Piastri and Leclerc at bay, and Carlos tried to keep within that five-second window until the flag.

Sadly, another penalty came for Alex, too, for contact with Hamilton. He served it during a third trip to the pits, but he would soon return to the garage to retire the car.

Antonelli's surprise pace on his old Pirelli tyres kept him just ahead of the five seconds Carlos needed, and our Spaniard had to settle for P7, but still crossed the line 10 seconds ahead of Hadjar.

"We need to be happy with P7 today," said Carlos after the race. "I think we did a good job and executed the race well.

"We were maybe slightly conservative with our pit stops and could’ve made Leclerc and Piastri fight for the positions on track, but these are all good learnings.

"At the end of the day, we had good pace, similar to the top teams, and we were the fastest car out of the midfield, so we’ll take the points and continue to push in the remaining two races.

"We’ll do our best to keep this momentum and hold onto P5 in the Championship!"

"It was a messy race today," was Alex's summary of his Las Vegas Saturday.

"It’s very disappointing to come away with no points from this weekend.

"We didn’t have radio communication at any point in the race, so we had to go old-school with using pit boards for all comms which compromised our race from the start.

"We sustained damage at the beginning of the race but due to the lack of radio, it was a big risk to not know if the car was safe to drive or have any information on flags, safety cars, or debris.

"It’s an opportunity missed this weekend when we’ve had strong pace on this track. Ultimately, it wasn’t our day, but that’s racing."

James Vowles, Atlassian Williams Racing's Team Principal shared his thoughts about both cars' races:

"Well done to Carlos, P7 was where the car was today pace-wise and he got everything out of it.

"Clean execution and great to see the gap that we were able to pull to the rest of the midfield.

"With Alex, a very difficult race for him. The radio failed on the laps to the grid and despite numerous efforts we were not able to reinstate it which meant we had no communication with him.

"After he got caught up in incidents, we decided the best course of action was to retire the car rather than risk any safety issues.

"We have got two races to go, a slight build in the points gap for fifth in the Championship and we need to keep doing that."