United States GP: Williams qualifying sees balance issues
By Williams Racing October 21 2023
After an encouraging Friday practice session when both Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant would finish quite high up the order, qualifying would see an unexpected change in the balance of the FW45 such that both drivers would struggle in the later session. Alex would finish 18th and Logan 20th in what could only be described as a difficult session for both drivers. But the big issue is that now with the Sprint format the cars are under Parc Ferme so the teams has no real opportunity to adjust the cars. Hopfully the conditions may come back to something more favourable for the Sprint shootout.
Williams Racing
United States GP Qualifying Review
Logan Sargeant: "Too
bad I wasn’t great today, but it was nice to drive on home turf. It was
a really tricky session. The car felt completely upside down from this
morning so it’s strange. We’ll have to look into it and see what we can
do better tomorrow."
Alex Albon:
"The car was quite different from FP1, feeling a little
disconnected which can happen when the wind picks up. It meant that to
get a clean lap it was very difficult, and my lap just wasn’t that good.
The car was better than Q1 today, so it’s a bit frustrating."
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
"We didn’t have enough pace this afternoon and although we were fairly
strong in FP1, we weren’t able to make enough progress through the day.
In fact, the balance of the car changed quite a lot from one session to
the next, which is not what we had expected.
The margins remain fine and with our competitors continuing to bring
upgrades, we are falling just short of progressing to Q2. With a little
less traffic, or a slightly better balance, we could’ve progressed, but
we weren’t perfect with everything today, and that cost us.
As this is a sprint event, there are more opportunities to come during
the weekend and although the cars are in Parc Fermé, there are still
some improvements we can make. We will look to build on the lessons from
today and attack tomorrow afresh."
Track: Circuit of The Americas,
USA
Lap Length: 5.513km
Pos
Driver
Team
Q1
Q2
Q3
18
A Albon
Williams Racing
1:36.315
-
-
20
L Sargeant
Williams Racing
1:36.827
-
-
United States GP: Williams qualifying sees balance issues
Posted by: Williams F1 (IP Logged)
Date: 21/10/2023 11:23
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