Williams scored its first points at the Formula 1 race in Monaco. But there has been no real upward trend since then, even though the F1 team from Grove has been working on saving weight for a month. Quite the opposite: In Barcelona, Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant are far behind in training and are clearly at the bottom of the list.
Albon’s mood is somewhat dampened because of this, but he doesn’t want to complain too much. Because, according to Albon, they had actually expected a difficult weekend from the start. “We’ve never looked very good in Barcelona, but we’ve made some steps forward. Compared to last year, I was very happy, even though we still have our normal limitations,” was his positive conclusion about the first training session.
FP2 shock for Williams: Next Formula 1 bankruptcy in Spain?
But in FP2, things went back again – and quite a bit. P19 and P20 were the final results and that was with quite a gap: Albon lost 1.5 seconds to the top, Sargeant even 1.8 seconds. For comparison: Lance Stroll in P18 was more than four tenths behind the faster Williams driver. “We tried to make some changes for FP2 to combat the problems from FP1, but that only made things worse,” Albon explained the development.
There were also external factors that he felt had a negative impact on performance. On the one hand, the high track temperatures of around 44 degrees, and on the other hand, the strong wind. Both of these are weak points on the FW46.
But where both Williams drivers unanimously see an improvement compared to last year is the long run. “It’s going in the right direction there,” Albon is sure. Sargeant: “If you look at the long run pace, it doesn’t look as bad as last year.” The American also puts the deficit that Williams had in the qualifying attempt into perspective: “We had a somewhat compromised run plan with little fuel, but we still have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
In his opinion, the balance at the Formula 1 weekend in Spain so far. The problem is more the tires, which you can’t get into the right working window with little fuel.
Williams has had a poor run in Barcelona qualifying since the new technical F1 regulations came into force. In 2022, Alex Albon and his then Williams teammate Nicholas Latifi finished 19th and 20th, while last year Albon and Sargeant also only finished 18th and 20th. On a track that is hostile to overtaking in the current tight pecking order of Formula 1, this is a deficit that is difficult to make up. The last time Williams scored points at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was in 2016. The drivers back then? Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.