Singapore GP: Tricky Friday practice for Williams Racing


By Williams Racing
September 16 2023

The opening Friday practice sessions for the Williams Racing Team would see a mixed but overall tricky day for the team. Both Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant would finish well down the times, Alex 20th and Logan 19th, but for Alex his results were impacted by the fact that he would suffer a technical issue with his car in the second session and would get no meaningful running. For Logan Sargeant his session was a tough but in someways positive one as he came to grips with the demands of the Singapore circuit. The team is confident that they have an understanding of the issues and are hopeful on making progress in resolving for Saturday practice.

 
 Williams Racing Singapore GP Friday Practice Review
Sargeant
 

Sargeant 

Logan Sargeant:
"FP2 was much better than FP1 so that was a good step forward. I was on a semi-decent lap on the Soft tyre but made a mistake in the last corner which cost us the lap time, but still a lot of good learning from today. We have a couple of different bits coming tomorrow that should help me out. As a team, we knew it was going to be a tough weekend feeling those limitations that we haven’t really experienced in the last couple of races. We just need to try and find a way around them the best we can."

Albon 
 

Alex Albon:
"We think the issue is battery related; I started my lap and it felt okay but then I just started to lose deployment as I went on the straight. I think we already know the problem so it shouldn’t be too long to fix but around here you want the mileage because it’s such a confidence building circuit. Aside from the issue, the car hasn’t felt too bad and I don’t believe we’ll suffer from any penalties, but we’ll have a proper look tonight. With the temperature of the car here this weekend and the lack of running time, we’ll have to do a little bit of guess work tomorrow, but it should be fine going into FP3 tomorrow."

 

Robson

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
"
A tricky day for us, especially on Alex’s side of the garage. We opted to do some testing with Alex in FP1, expecting to complete the race preparation during FP2. Unfortunately, an issue within the ERS system of the PU meant that we had to end his FP2 after just a couple of laps on the Hard tyre. We’ll fit a different module to Alex’s car overnight and look to make up for lost time during FP3.

Logan had a more successful day and completed his plan without any issues. He got some good experience of this tricky circuit under his belt and he was able to get a good sense of how to trade low and high fuel performance at this track. We’ve got a lot of work to do to improve the car, but we know what we are looking for and we’ll certainly be able to make some progress."

 
Albon
 
Sargeant
 
Practice Classification Singapore GP:
Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore | 4.94km
 
Driver   FP1 FP2
 
A. Albon   1:34.657 (13th)     1:35.558 (20th)
 
L Sargeant   1:35.778 (20th)     1:34.327 (19th)
Albon