Spanish GP: Difficult Friday for Williams Racing


By Williams Racing
June 22 2024

Friday practice for the 2024 Spanish GP would turn out to be a difficult time for Williams Racing with both drivers finishing bottom of the FP2 times with Alex Albon 19th and Logan Sargeant 20th. It was hoped that the 2024 FW46 would be a step forward over the 2023 model which struggled at the Barcelona track. But despite some optimism that the FW46 was a step forward the team has a lot of work to do to unlock further pace. Both Alex and Logan had positives to take away from their Friday sessions but at the end of the day both have pace to find for FP3 and qualifying.

 
 Williams Racing Spanish Grand Prix Friday Practice
Sargeant
 

Sargeant 

Logan Sargeant:
"It’s been a bit of a tricky day. This track has always been difficult for us and it’s proving to be so this weekend. There’s been positive flashes today like our long run pace which doesn’t look as bad as what it did last year. We had a bit of a compromised run plan on low fuel. There are still things to be optimistic about, but we have some work to do to find some time for tomorrow. We need to get the tyre working better on low fuel. From a balance point of view, we’re not too far away. We’ll do some digging tonight."

Albon 
 

Alex Albon:
"FP1 was pretty good. We haven't gone well in Barcelona historically, but we've made some good steps forward compared to last year. Going into FP2, we made a couple of changes to combat issues from FP1, but as the track gripped up, the same issues continued. We'll revisit overnight and see what we can do to address them. It's tough to be in P19 and P20, so I'm hoping that the track cools and the wind dies down to help us find a bit more pace."

 

Smeets

Sven Smeets Sporting Director:
"
Last year we struggled at this track, especially when the track temperature went up. Today we learned that the FW46 is better balanced and a good step forward from last year, but that we still have to solve some issues we encountered in both Free Practice sessions to find performance for Qualifying and the race. We will be working hard tonight to go through all the data and try to find some solutions to help the drivers. Sunday seems still to be a cooler day which could help us to find performance."

 
Albon
 
Sargeant
 
Practice Classification
 
Driver   FP1 FP2
A. Albon   1:15.417 (10th)    1:14.807 (19th)
L Sargeant   1:15.752 (18th)    1:15.070 (20th)
Albon
 

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