Abu Dhabi GP: Disappointing qualifying for Williams Racing
By Williams Racing
November 26 2023
Qualifying for the 2023 Abu Dhabi GP would see the Williams Racing Team head into the session quite optimistic about their chances but by the end of the session one car would finish 14th and the other 20th. For Alex Albon his session was frustating as he was not able to extract the same performance in Q2 as he did in Q1 seeing him 14th. For Logan Sargeant despite setting competiive times his session would end as he was to see his lap times deleted due to track limits penalties on both occassions that he set a time. So the team will see their drivers start from 14th and 20th which is far from the best positions as they continue their fight for seventh in the championship.
|
|
|
Williams Racing
Mexican GP Qualifying Review |
| |
 |
| |
|
Logan Sargeant:
"At the end of the day, it’s my mistake to have two laps deleted
due to track limits. For sure it’s disappointing but at the same time
I’ve been driving well again this weekend. I feel like I’ve had the pace
since the first lap on Friday. To have nothing to show from it after
Qualifying is a shame. We’ll move on and hopefully try to make up for it
tomorrow. The car felt like we were in a good place yesterday on high
fuel, quite consistent and reasonable degradation. However, there’s not
much data to see the pace of other cars because of the disrupted session
yesterday. We’ll give it our best shot tomorrow and go for it." |
| |

|
Alex Albon:
"Our Q2 lap was slower than our Q1 lap, with our tyres just overheating
really quickly. When the track goes quicker and you go theoretically
faster and faster, by Sector 3 you’ve got no tyres left so you’re having
to do tyre management during Qualifying, which is not ideal and makes it
tricky. A bit of a frustrating Qualifying but we’ll have to look to
tomorrow. Overheating will be a problem in the race, so I think it’s
going to be a toss-up between a one or two stop for most. Our long runs
seem to be okay, so we’ll do our own race and do the best job we can." |
| |

|
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
"The car was quite good this evening and a perfect lap in Q2 might have
qualified Alex for Q3, however, he couldn’t quite replicate his pace
from Q1 and with a congested midfield, he finished 14th, less than 0.1s
from 11th. Logan had good pace on both runs in Q1 and could’ve made Q2,
but two track limit errors cost him that opportunity and leaves him in a
difficult place for the Grand Prix.
Tomorrow is going to be an exciting end to the season, and we have a lot
still to do to cement 7th place. AlphaTauri have a strong starting
position, but the race will be long and there are a lot of cars with
similar pace. We have a decent race car this weekend and with a good
strategy we can fight the cars ahead." |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
|
Track: Yas Marina Circuit, UAE
|
Lap Length: 5.281km |
|
|
|
Pos |
Driver |
Team |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
|
14 |
A Albon |
Williams Racing |
1:24.298 |
1:24.439 |
- |
|
DNF |
L Sargeant |
Williams Racing |
- |
- |
- |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
Bookmark or share this story with: