Spanish GP: Disappointment for Williams in Qualifying
By Andrew Hooper
May 12 2018
After three difficult practice sessions where neither Williams driver would move off the bottom of the times qualifying for the 2018 Spanish GP was no better. Both Williams drivers would not make it past the first period of qualifying. Sergey Sirotkin would finish ahead of team-mate Lance Stroll with the pair in 18th and 19th. For Lance his session was marked by an off-track moment that saw his qualfying end in the gravel. Now it was down to Sunday's race where both drivers will have the choice of tyres at the start, maybe this will help their performance.
Williams
Martini Spanish GP Qualifying
Team Summary:
After struggling through the practice sessions the prospects for qualifying
were not looking the best for Williams. Hartley had crashed his Torro Rosso
in the final practice and would not be running. Both Williams drivers would
complete their first flying laps but would drop down the order quickly.
Quickest would be Raikkonen with a 1m:17.483 followed by Hamilton and
Vettel. Bottas would move up to third followed by Vettel and Verstappen. The
Williams pair were 16th and 17th. Vettel would go quickest with a 1m:17.031
with the top five all on the supersoft tyre. Alonso would be sixth but he
was on the medium tyre. With the final runs been completed the Williams
drivers were 17th and 18th with Lance leading Sergey.
Verstappen was able to move up to second followed now by Raikkonen and
Ricciardo. Hamilton and Bottas were now fifth and sixth with five minutes
remaining in the period. With the end of the period the Williams drivers
would finish in 18th and 19th which is unfortunately where they were
expected to be.
The second period would see all the top runners on the soft tyre. Vettel
would go quickest with a 1m:16.802 followed by Raikkonen, Bottas and
Hamilton. Verstappen and Ricciardo weer fifth and sixth. Seventh and eighth
were the Hass cars of Magnussen and Grosjean. Magnussen was able to move up
to sixth ahead of Ricciardo. With the end of the period the order would
remain the same with Vettel still quickest. The final period would get
underway with everyone out on the supersoft tyres. After the first runs it
would be Hamilton from Verstappen, Ricciardo, Bottas, Vettel, Alonso,
Raikkonen, Grosjean, Sainz and Magnussen.
The second run in the final period would see several drivers come out on the
soft tyre but Hamilton would go quickest with a 1m:16.173 running on the
supersoft tyre. Bottas also on this tyre would move up to second with
Raikkonen now third on the soft's. Vettel would move ahead to be third
followed by Raikkonen, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Magnussen, Alonso, Sainz, and
Grosjean tenth. But for the Williams martini team it was a session marked by
disappointment with both drivers failing to improve from the rear of the
times. But based on their practice pace the result were not a real surprise.
Now comes the race where the Williams drivers will have the choice of tyres.
No doubt this will involve the use of the soft tyre at some stage.
Lance Stroll:
Lance would be first oit in the opening period running on new supersoft
tyres. Lance would set a 1m:20.623 on his firs lap. Lance would improve with
a 1m:20.225 to move ahead of Sergey. Lance would pit after a quick five lap
run. Lance was back out on a new set of supersoft tyres for his final run.
Lance was on a quicker lap but it would go wrong as he went off at Turn 13
ending his session in the gravel. This was the third time he had gone off
over the weekend. His car understeered through Turn 12 and Lance kept his
foot in but he would spin in the gravel. Maybe Lance would have recovered if
he had not have kept his foot in it. Lance was out of the first period.
Sergey Sirotkin:
Sergey would follow his team-mate out also on new supersoft tyres. Sergey
would finish ahead of team-mate Lance with a 1m:20.302. Sergey was on a
quicker lap but would fail to improve in the final sector. He would also pit
again having completed five laps. Sergey was also back out and was on a
quicker lap, again on the supersoft tyres. But he would have a big moment on
the final sector and would fail to improve losing 0.8 in the final sector.
But his next lap would see him set a 1m:19.695 to move ahead of his
team-mate. As a result Sergey would not make it past the first period.
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