Chinese Grand Prix: Atlassian Williams Sprint - Qualifying
By Williams Racing
March 22 2025
The second day of the 2025 Chinese GP would see the Atlassian Williams Racing Team having to cope with the demands of the Sprint followed by qualifying for Sunday's race. Both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz had difficult Sprint's with both having to contend with tyre issues. Alex would finish in 11th and Carlos 17th. Post the Sprint the team would make significant changes to their setups hoping to put the drivers into a better position going into Qualifying. Agan we would see Alex finish ahead of Carlos with the pair ending the session in 10th and 15th. But the margin between the pair was so small and had come down to just one corner. Next is Sunday's race where tyre management will again be an issue.
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Atlassian Williams Racing Chinese GP Sprint
- Qualifying |
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Carlos Sainz:
"Still struggling with the same issues during Qualifying. As soon as I
begin to push, I lose the feeling with the car in certain corners and
struggle to improve the total lap time. I’m trying to make the most of
it, but the reality is that I am unfortunately not there yet, especially
in the last sector. I know I’ll end up getting there with the car, it’s
now a matter of shortening the process as much as possible. Regarding
tomorrow’s race, we’ve made some big set-up changes to the car and
hopefully we will be in better shape than this morning. Graining will
again be key, so let’s see what we can achieve." |
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Alex Albon:
"It’s so close out there! I think we had the whole of the midfield
spread by a tenth by our calculations. Q1 and Q2 were honestly almost
the same because the margins were so close. I’m very happy to have
executed well and get clean laps on the board. The wind was gusting
quite a lot during that session and it’s easy to make mistakes in those
conditions, but I think I was consistent out there. It’s difficult to do
that on a tricky track like this, it’s easy to overdrive and the tyres
are so sensitive. It felt like I was in a good rhythm. We made some
set-up changes today but there’s still a lot to do. I’m happy to get
through but it’s going to be a tough race tomorrow." |
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James Vowles Team
Principal:
"Sprint weekends are always challenging and this one is no
different. We didn’t have the car in the right place this morning and in
the Sprint Race, we suffered more graining than near enough all the cars
around us and had to try our best to manage it. We made some quite
significant set-up changes for both drivers for Qualifying and for the
Grand Prix, which should put us in a better position. As we said before
the season started, the field is so tight, and just milliseconds really
makes a difference between making it to Q3 or being on the outside of
it. With Carlos, we can absolutely see improvement; in reality it was
just one corner that differentiated him from Alex, but it bodes well for
the race tomorrow." |
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Track: Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai |
Lap Length: 5.451 km |
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Sprint Race |
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Pos |
Driver |
Team |
Finish Pos |
Time/Gap |
Fastest Lap |
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9 |
A Albon |
Williams Racing |
11 |
31:19.257 (+39.292) |
1:37.344 |
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13 |
C Sainz |
Williams Racing |
17 |
31:31.341 (+51.376) |
1:35.819 |
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Qualifying |
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Pos |
Driver |
Team |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
|
10 |
A Albon |
Williams Racing |
1:31.503 |
1:31.595 |
1:31.706 |
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15 |
C Sainz |
Williams Racing |
1:31.628 |
1:31.840 |
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