After crashing out of the Australian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz helped guide his teammate to fifth place.

The Spaniard was one of three drivers to fail to complete a single lap, however, rather than hiding at the back of the hospitality unit or heading for the airport, Sainz opted to use his vast experience to aid his teammate in the difficult conditions.

"The pit stops were absolutely on point... the strategy... well done to them," said team boss James Vowles at race end.

"One point to note on the strategy is that we had an additional strategist today," he added, "which was Carlos.

"His insight was incredibly useful on that transition to the Inters," revealed the Briton.

"You saw a number of teams hesitating... 'we're not sure, do we try and hang it out?', but Carlos was adamant: 'You won't survive on that in the last few corners'. And he was spot on. He helped drive us towards that."

While Williams pitted Alex Albon, Ferrari left its two drivers out, as did RB with Yuki Tsunoda.

Before the stop the Thai driver had been running seventh, however once his rivals had also pitted he was up to fourth, only to be passed by Kimi Antonelli two laps from the flag.

Albon briefly inherited fourth again when Antonelli was handed a 5s time penalty for an unsafe release. However, following a Right of Review this was reversed and the Italian was promoted back to fourth again.

Referring to Sainz' first lap crash, Vowles said: "It's slightly odd, so we have to go through it more.

"Effectively it was an upshift on part-throttle, but there was more torque than he would have expected at that point."

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