Austrian GP: Frustrating Saturday for Williams Racing


By Williams Racing
June 30 2024

Saturday for the 2024 Austrian GP would see both the Sprint plus qualifying for Sunday's race completed. In both session both Alex Albon and Logan Sargheant would find the pace of their cars lacking as they ran at the back of the field in the Sprint and in qualifying would not get past Q1 such were their difficulties. In the Sprint Alex would start from the pit lane as the team took the opportunity to make changes while in parc ferme hoping to improve his car. At least a positive to come from the Sprint was the fact that the team learnt from their time on the track such that they took these and applied them to their cars. Hopefully given how close the midfield is the changes that the team has made will see them able to fight for a positive result in Sunday's race.

 
 Williams Racing Austrian GP Sprint & Race Qualifying
Sargeant
 
Sargeant 
 

Logan Sargeant:
"It’s been a frustrating day. We’ve had such a swing of balance from session to session and we are so reliant on the right conditions to be quick. The temperature increased massively today, and we tend to struggle when that happens. I was happy with my qualifying lap this afternoon and I pretty much got the most out of it, but the ultimate result is disappointing and starting from near the back is never fun. The positive is that we learnt a lot in the Sprint Race today that we can apply tomorrow, also making a change following the Sprint that will hopefully help for the race and move us in the right direction."

Albon

Alex Albon:
"When you start a Sprint weekend not being in a happy place with the car, you’ve got more catching up to do. We’ve been making bigger changes than we normally do all weekend and I think we’ve done a decent job for the most part, however I’m just struggling a lot with balance, especially in Turn 3 and 4. My lap for Q2, Lewis let me pass like normal, but I think I got some dirty air and locked up, so this was the difference with it being such fine margins for us. Either way, I’m happy with how we turned the car around, however we need to understand where the balance is going ahead of the tomorrow."

Smeets
 

Sven Smeets, Sporting Director:
"With Alex starting from the last row for the Sprint Race and being unhappy with the car set-up, we decided to make some changes resulting in a pitlane start. This has allowed us to gather valuable insights which will help us for the Grand Prix tomorrow. For Qualifying, the wind and the temperature picked up and we saw both drivers struggling more with the balance of the car. Alex missed out on Q2 by less than a tenth, with the midfield being so tight. Tomorrow we will see how the race evolves but with the high forecasted temperatures, it will become a big tyre battle in the midfield."

Albon
 
Sargeant
 

Track: Red Bull Ring, Austria

Lap Length: 4.318 km
 
SPRINT RACE
Pos Driver Team Time/Gap Fastest Lap Grid
16 A Albon Williams Racing 44.076    1:10.488 15
17 L Sargeant Williams Racing 44.673 1:10.562 Pit Lane
 
GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING
Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3
16 A Albon Williams Racing 1:05.736-   - -
19 L Sargeant Williams Racing 1:05.856 - -
 
Albon
 

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