Mexican GP: Mixed Friday for Williams Racing


By Williams Racing
October 26 2024

Friday practice for the 2024 Mexican GP would be a day of very mixed results for the Williams Racing Team. It would start off in the most difficult of ways with Alex Albon heavily crashing his car in FP1 when involved in what was later described as a misunderstanding between himself and Bearman. The damage to his car was such that he was not seen again for the rest of the day. Part of this may have been in part due to the fact that FP2 was a Pirelli tyre test of their 2025 tyres. For Franco Colapinto he would get through both sessions without incident, despitye a few off track moments as he got to grips with the circuit. In FP1 he would finish 11th. For Alex the lost track time will certainly not help but hopefully the data from Franco will help with both drivers preparations for Saturday and qualifying.

 
 Williams Racing Mexican Grand Prix Friday Practice
Albon
 

Colapinto 

Franco Colapinto:
"It’s been a good first day here in Mexico. We made some changes between sessions however the car felt a little bit less alive, so we’ll look at that tonight. Overall, the key today was to get used to the track and get up to speed which went well. We’re going in the right direction, so we’ll keep building tomorrow."

Albon 
 

Alex Albon:
"It was a frustrating day today. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow but I’m hoping we’re not too far behind given FP2 was a Pirelli test, so hopefully the lack of track time today is less compromising. Regarding the incident, I think Ollie got told that I was behind him too late and tried his best to speed up into the high-speed corners, but I just caught him at the worst part of the track and there wasn’t much I could’ve done to avoid it. We’ll put it behind us as a racing incident and hopefully turn things around for tomorrow."

 

Smeets

Sven Smeets Sporting Director:
"
A day of mixed feelings. We completed the programme with Franco in FP1 gathering valuable information for tomorrow and Sunday. Unfortunately, Alex caught a slow-moving Bearman in an unfortunate spot on the track with limited options to avoid a collision. Extensive repairs were needed, and the team gave it their all to repair the car in time for FP2. We came very close but needed a few more minutes to give Alex a couple of laps at the end of FP2. Franco completed the Pirelli tyre test programme in FP2 without any problems. Tomorrow we will be focussing on giving Alex as much run time as we can while with Franco, we will be looking to gather vital data for final set-up decisions."

 
Colapinto
 
Albon
 
Practice Classification
 
Driver   FP1 FP2
A. Albon   1:19.812 (17th)           DNS
F. Colapinto   1:19.109 (11th)      1:18.908 (15th)
Colapinto