Williams boss James Vowles has vowed that the team must “significantly tighten up” their communication after Carlos Sainz was left frustrated at the Miami Grand Prix.

Williams enjoyed a strong weekend in Florida with Sainz and team-mate Alex Albon starting inside the top seven before claiming a second consecutive two-car points finish for the team.

James Vowles: Carlos Sainz passion ‘exactly why I want him’ at Williams

However, Sainz was angered at the end of the race after he was overtaken by Albon in the early stages, having been left under the impression that his team-mate – nursing a reliability issue – would stay behind him.

Sainz was heard commenting over team radio at the chequered flag: “That’s not how I go racing, guys. I don’t care. I don’t care.

“I’ve lost a lot of confidence here on everything.”

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Appearing on Williams’ post-race Vowles Verdict show, the team principal admitted that he was left “frustrated” by the confusion between Sainz and Albon, insisting an incident of that nature “simply won’t happen again” under his watch.

He said: “This is the part that frustrated me the most from the race weekend.

“Winding back a bit, a message was communicated to both race engineers effectively that Alex had a reliability problem and we needed to get some air into the radiators.

“That was communicated to both, the decision of just making a little gap between the cars for the time being to make sure we do that.

“However, that message wasn’t clear in its construct. It wasn’t clear even on whether overtaking was possible or not.

“The primary function is getting the car called to move forward.

“To Carlos, the message was communicated: ‘Alex won’t attack you.’

“And to Alex, that same message was communicated that he isn’t to overtake Carlos, but only when his DRS was open and he was effectively alongside Carlos completing the overtake.

“So this isn’t Alex going against team orders.

“This is on us – as a team, as an organisation – to significantly tighten up how we communicate to the engineers and how quickly we communicate to the drivers.

“There’s a lot of learning that comes out of this. What I can assure everyone is it simply won’t happen again.

“We are so fortunate to have two world-class drivers that are fighting for us and will do absolutely everything right for the team.

“And our job is to create the right construct for them.”

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Vowles went on to reveal that Williams would have almost certainly instructed Sainz to let Albon pass at some stage regardless, with the former Ferrari driver carrying damage from a first-lap incident.

And he sympathised with Sainz’s emotional response after the race, insisting that the “passion” the driver showed is “exactly why I want him in this team.”

Vowles said: “What’s worth adding from my side is even once we had stabilised them, we more than likely would have very quickly inverted [swapped] the cars.

“The reason behind that is Carlos had sustained damage from that Lap 1 incident and it was getting worse and worse.

“We could see the floor was deteriorating, it was part of the reason why Alex was getting closer and closer to him and able to re-overtake, the losses really mounting into a couple of tenths by this point.

“So, more than likely, we would have done that. But again, that would be a team decision rather than a driver not expecting to be attacked.

“Final bit from me is: I’d be disappointed if we didn’t have drivers being frustrated by what happens out on track.

“They’re giving their heart and soul to us and, in the case of Carlos, he was there fighting for a fifth place on merit.

“And in the circumstance where something catches you off guard and you’re not sure whether it was the driver or anything else going on, it can frustrate you.

“But his passion is exactly why I want him in this team and in the car.

“What I can assure everyone is we spent quite a bit of time post-race and again on Monday talking through the incident, [which lasted] just a few minutes, but more importantly how we as a team move forward from that and do a better job altogether in the future.”

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