Monaco GP: Scruffy race for Williams Racing

Race Notes
• Nicholas Latifi finished 15th in the Monaco Grand Prix whilst Alex Albon retired from the race
• After a delayed start owing to heavy rainfall prior to lights out, both drivers left the pit lane behind the Safety Car on the full wet Pirelli tyre
• Nicholas stopped on lap two to change on to the intermediate tyre, whilst Alex stopped on lap 18 for the hard tyre. A puncture forced another change just four laps later, this time the Thai driver taking the medium compound
• A heavy crash for Mick Schumacher brought out the red flag on lap 30 and once racing resumed, Alex was unfortunately forced to retire on lap 50.

Nicholas Latifi:
"Wet conditions are always tricky and even more so on a street track like Monaco! It was a very challenging race and after pitting early on, we were detached from the back of the pack but we did have good pace on the intermediate tyre to catch the field back up. The last stint on the medium tyre proved quite tricky as I didn’t feel completely comfortable with the balance. However, we managed to bring it home, which isn’t easy in these conditions, and also picked up two places from the guys we were racing around which is a positive."

Alex Albon:
"It was a tricky day out there and a bit of a scruffy performance from my side, too. The conditions meant that getting the brakes in the right window was really challenging, especially with all the variation that a drying track brings and the red flags. The car felt good whenever we had clean air though and I did feel competitive at points, so there are some positives to take away from today.

Unfortunately, towards the end of the race I had an issue with the car which meant I had to retire. I think it’s probably a weekend to forget for us, but that’s how it goes sometimes."

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
"It was a long race today with the delayed start and then a red flag interruption. With Alex we opted to play the long game on the Full Wet tyres and run it until the track was ready for slicks. We timed the transition pretty well and he found some good pace on Prime until he went straight on at T1 and then punctured the tyre.

His pace on the Option after the red flag was again strong, but as he was now out of position, he couldn’t make any places. We retired the car when Alex reported some unexpected bouncing on the straights. Nicholas damaged his front wing early in the race, which forced an early switch to Intermediates and set his race back. Although he made some progress later in the race and battled well with Zhou and Tsunoda, P15 was the best that we could achieve today.

It was a tough race, but we learnt quite a lot about the FW44 this weekend, some of which will be relevant to the next race in Baku."

Track: Circuit de Monaco, Monaco
Lap Length: 3.337 km

Weather: Mixed conditions
Temperature: Air: 20-23 °C Track: 26-32°C

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