Williams on top at home race: While Alexander Albon equalled his best qualifying result of the year in ninth place, Logan Sargeant even beat his previous best mark (P13 in Canada) in twelfth place. Overall, the traditional team from Grove can look back on the best qualifying of the year.
“I’m very happy,” said Albon after qualifying. “It’s one of those sessions where right from the first lap of the session it was like, ‘Okay, where is this pace coming from?’ And that was on the Inter tyre, not to mention a slick tyre.”
Albon: Cooler temperatures helped Williams
Albon looked to the cooler temperatures for a possible answer to the question of where the Williams pace came from after rather unremarkable practice sessions: “One thing is certain: when the track cooled down, the car came to life quite a bit. That was quite interesting. The traction of our car has always been a problem so far this year. And with the cooler track temperatures, that was not a problem.”
However, qualifying at Silverstone did not go entirely smoothly for Williams. “I sustained a bit of damage on my Q2 lap through Turn 13, Maggotts and Becketts and carried it into Q3,” revealed Albon. “Not much and to be honest, I don’t know if our position would have changed.”
Sargeant survives rain scare
Sargeant was also satisfied after P12. In Q2, the American was only 0.242 seconds behind Albon in the team-internal duel – and that despite Sargeant having to skip the first free practice session of Formula 1 on Friday in favor of junior Franco Colapinto. “I feel like I did a great job of fighting back in FP2. And then we show up here this morning and in a way have a fresh start with the rain,” said the 23-year-old. “There is so much unpredictability, but I’m proud of how I managed to keep everything under control.”
But Sargeant’s chances of even making it into Q2 were in doubt until shortly before the end. Sargeant was the second-to-last driver to take to the track on the last run in Q1, which meant that it started to rain again on his decisive lap. But Sargeant was able to improve and narrowly avoided elimination in 14th place, although he himself didn’t initially believe it: “When we went out on the slick tires in Q1 and it started to rain, I thought: ‘Well, it’s not our day.’ But it was just enough to put together something that was good enough to get through.”
In Q2, however, Sargeant made a mistake in Becketts on his fastest lap when the FW46 suffered from understeer. “That cost me a potential chance of making Q3. I probably wouldn’t have made it quite that far, but it would have been close,” admitted Sargeant. “But considering I did three laps yesterday with little fuel in the tank to go into qualifying, which ended up being dry and managed to put in some good laps, I’m happy with that.”
Sargeant defies eviction rumors: I am a fighter
For Sargeant, the more positive performance in Silverstone comes at a sensitive time in the driver market, with Williams team boss James Vowles not ruling out removing Sargeant from the cockpit during the season on Thursday. “I’ve had these noises for… I don’t even know how long, from every single direction,” Sargeant said defiantly.
“Considering how long it took to get two of the same car, it’s difficult to get a clear picture of how things are going,” continued the 32-time GP starter. “What I do know is that I’m happy with the way I’m driving. I couldn’t say that last year and this year I can.”
Since the Japanese GP, Sargeant insisted, he has been really proud of his performance. “Even if I didn’t always have the car to deliver. I’m a fighter. I will fight, regardless of the situation, I will fight at the end. And today was another example of that,” said the man from Florida.
Albon aims for points in the British GP: Race pace was pretty good
The best qualifying of the year is in the bag, but what about the race? Both Williams drivers were confident in this regard too – even though only Albon has managed to score two points so far, finishing ninth in Monaco. “Yes, we can do that. Our race pace on Friday was pretty good,” was Albon’s clear answer to the question of whether a top 10 result was possible. Sargeant agreed: “Alex had great race pace on Friday. I had a bit of work to do, so I’ll obviously go over that again.”
Albon specified how good the Williams pace could be tomorrow: “It was better than the Haas and on a par with the Astons. So in a way we are fighting in the race where we qualified. There is also Checo who will come through pretty quickly, but at the same time there are changeable conditions. So if we can stay in the thick of it, anything can happen.”
But Williams is still a long way from fighting for pole position – unlike the other traditional British team, McLaren. Lando Norris was once again fighting for first place on the grid at his home race, but ultimately had to settle for P3 after a mistake on his last fast lap. You can read all the details about the McLaren qualifying here: