Emilia Romagna GP: Williams Racing Grand Prix Preview
By Williams Racing
May 17 2023
The Williams Racing Team returns to Europe for the 2023 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the famous Imola circuit. The weekend will see a new tyre format being introduced introduced. The team will not be bringing any updates to this event as they focus on the new tyre limitations. For Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant they have their concerns over the weather and how this will affect strategy. Hopefully they both can come away with a successful weekend.
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Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
The sixth race of the season sees us return to Europe for a
triple-header. We start in Italy, at the Imola circuit, before moving on
to Monaco and Barcelona.
As well as a return to Europe, this weekend sees the introduction of a
new tyre format. This Alternative Tyre Allocation (“ATA”) event – which
will be repeated at the Hungaroring later in the year – will see each
team have only 11 sets of dry tyres available for the whole weekend. The
11 sets of tyres this weekend are a mix of Pirelli’s softest compounds.
As well as fewer sets of dry tyres this weekend, we also have the
introduction of a new Pirelli wet tyre, which will run without heating
blankets. Given the weather forecast, this may become very relevant this
weekend.
With fewer sets of tyres available, we have opted not to bring
significant new items to this event, and we will instead focus on the
new event format, the new wet tyres and the challenge of using the
softest compounds at Imola.
The Imola circuit is a fast and flowing circuit that runs
anti-clockwise. There is a single DRS zone and whilst this is one of the
longest DRS zones on the calendar, overtaking remains difficult at this
circuit, which is a consideration for the race strategy.
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Logan
Sargeant:
I’m excited to be starting the European leg of the season in Imola. It’s
looking like a tricky weekend in terms of weather, but it’ll be nice to
drive an F1 car in the wet for the first time. We have a different
qualifying format which should shake things up a little bit and there’s
a lot of opportunity going into this weekend. Imola is a historic track
that I’ve always loved driving and hopefully we can have a good one.
Alex
Albon:
We’ve got an interesting qualifying format for Imola, so I think there’s
going to be a lot of strategy involved during Friday and Saturday.
Otherwise, I think the weather is going to be the other determining
factor this weekend. It’s a great track and one of my favourites on the
calendar. Ultimately, I think we’ll need to leave room for some
randomness and unpredictability with how it looks everything is going to
play out, but let’s see how we go. |
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Race Data
Friday:
Practice 1: 13:30 - 14:30
Practice 2: 17:00 - 18:00
Saturday:
Practice 3: 12:30 - 13:30
Qualifying: 16:00 – 17:00
Sunday: Race: 15:00 |
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