Tag: Alex Albon

Verstappen leads Red Bull 1-2 in first British GP practice

Max Verstappen has started the British Grand Prix weekend in strong form, leading a foreboding Red Bull Racing one-two in the weekend’s first practice session. Verstappen hammered in two times on softs quick enough to top the session, his best being …

Max Verstappen has started the British Grand Prix weekend in strong form, leading a foreboding Red Bull Racing one-two in the weekend’s first practice  session.

Verstappen hammered in two times on softs quick enough to top the session, his best being a 1m28.600s set on used rubber. Teammate Sergio Perez’s second attempt at a flying lap got him to only within 0.448s of the leader.

Both drivers have been equipped with fresh power units for the weekend and enjoyed a clean hour of running, bar Perez running over a large piece of canvas that had found its way onto the Hangar straight. Verstappen also complained about a lack of grip on the hard tire at the start of the day, describing it as like driving on ice.

Pirelli is using a new tire construction this weekend in response to increased downforce loads generated by the cars this year, and tire pressures are also very high around the high-energy circuit, set at 26.5 psi and 23 psi for the fronts and rears respectively.

Alex Albon was an excellent third and only 0.041s slower than Perez, the Thai driver benefitting from his Williams car’s strong straight-line speed.

Alex Albon made his Williams FW45’s new livery look good with third-fastest time to start the team’s home race weekend. Andy Hone/Motorsport Images

Fernando Alonso was almost 0.2s slower for Aston Martin in fourth, beating Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari by 0.012s.

Esteban Ocon briefly led the session at the start of the soft-tire runs but ended a commendable sixth and 0.719s off the pace with his upgraded Alpine, beating Carlos Sainz to the spot.

Lando Norris was eighth with the second phase of his major McLaren upgrade, part of which was only finished in the lead-up to the session. He was 0.841s adrift ahead of Lance Stroll and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, who ended the hour in his garage with a hydraulic problem.

Nyck de Vries emerged unscathed from a trip through the gravel at Luffield to clock the 11th-quickest time.

Lewis Hamilton was the fastest Mercedes, taking 12th ahead of teammate George Russell in 14th. The team was back-to-back trialing a new front wing by trading it between the drivers, but both had more serious problems during the hour.

Hamilton reported “pretty bad” bouncing early in the session, and Russell reported vibrations through his steering wheel and struggled to string a lap together. Neither completed a lap on the soft tire, explaining the time disparity to the front of the field.

Pierre Gasly was sandwiched between the Mercedes cars in 13th ahead of Valtteri Bottas in 15th.

Yuki Tsunoda was 16th quickest ahead of Logan Sargeant, Zhou Guanyu and Haas teamamtes Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, the last of which appeared to shed some bodywork over the curbs late in the session.

Drive to P7 ‘not that fun’ but Albon proud to handle the pressure

Alex Albon says having to drive defensively to hold onto his impressive seventh place in the Canadian Grand Prix was not particularly enjoyable given the pressure he was under. Williams brought Albon an upgraded car to Montreal and he duly delivered …

Alex Albon says having to drive defensively to hold onto his impressive seventh place in the Canadian Grand Prix was not particularly enjoyable given the pressure he was under.

Williams brought Albon an upgraded car to Montreal and he duly delivered by reaching Q3 before climbing into the top seven early on. That was achieved by one-stopping and doing 58 laps on one set of hard tires — holding off George Russell and then Esteban Ocon for a long spell — with Albon saying the tough strategy was necessary to get ahead of other cars of comparable performance.

“I do think we had similar pace to the McLarens the whole weekend — I feel like realistically, where we were, we had to do something different to them in front as they were in front to get the points,” Albon said. “We’ve had very good pace this weekend. To still get points is difficult. You’ve got those eight cars — the Astons, the Red Bulls, the Ferraris and the Mercedes — (and) the final two positions, it normally feels like it’s the Alpines now.

“So we had to stick to the one-stop. And when the guys told me I had, I don’t know what it was, 35 or 40 laps (to go), I think they even told me 20 to make me feel better! I looked at the TV screen, and I was like ‘Oh my god, I hope that’s not real!’

“I had a grunt, because I was like, ‘Uh…’ I’ve done these races a lot now. I can tell you they’re not that fun. We’re good at defending, we have a straight-line car. In these situations, it’s all about trying. You’re obviously at a big tire deficit, but at the same time saving the tires to make the key corners count — Turn 10 — making sure I positioned the car in Esteban’s dirty air to try to make him hurt his tires, his traction, that kind of thing.

“So you’re driving a race that’s very much in your rear-view mirrors, even though you’re trying not to make mistakes. The other thing is obviously when the tread comes down, the tires start to cool down quite a lot, and you have to start pushing. By the end of the race, you can see white parts where you’re right down to the canvas. You’ve got to push flat out, it feels like qualifying for the last 20 laps, but at the same time, you can’t afford to make a mistake. There’s this real balance going on. But that’s what we’re paid for.”

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Despite saying it’s not fun to execute such a long defensive drive, Albon says it’s something he’s generally found he’s good at and he was proud of the way Williams executed after putting so much emphasis on the opportunity Canada provided.

“I’ve always — even in Formula 3, Formula 2 days — I’ve enjoyed leading the pack and controlling it. Obviously I’m not technically leading the race, but I’m leading at that point; you could call it the midfield race. It’s almost like just doing enough to keep them behind and making sure that you’ve got enough in the tank for the rest of the race. That’s something which is quite tricky to gauge.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without a good car. Honestly speaking, this weekend, we’ve had a great car. I can’t thank the team enough. I’ve been at the factory the last two weeks quite a lot, in terms of simulator work, but also with James (Vowles) and I can’t tell you how much of a parts deficit we were at after Barcelona. We were on the edge.

“We decided to fast-track the upgrade into Canada, and the people at the factory, composites, everyone, actually James and I went to meet them and discuss with them: ‘We’ve got to try and get this upgrade ready for Canada; it’s going to be our only chance possibly until one of these Monza races come along.’

“The guys worked absolutely flat out to get it ready. It’s great to be able to put it on the car. We put a new power unit in it this weekend, we put everything into this weekend. (We) actually (had) a bit of pressure in some respects coming into this weekend to deliver, and we did.”

Eighth on the grid ‘a victory for us’ – Albon

Alex Albon described qualifying eighth on the grid for the Australian Grand Prix as “a victory” for Williams as it is now fully in the midfield fight. A year ago, Albon finished tenth in Melbourne after starting from the back of the grid, completing …

Alex Albon described qualifying eighth on the grid for the Australian Grand Prix as “a victory” for Williams as it is now fully in the midfield fight.

A year ago, Albon finished tenth in Melbourne after starting from the back of the grid, completing nearly the entire race on a set of hard tires to hang on for a point. He starts 12 places better off this time around after setting the fastest overall middle sector given the efficiency of the Williams on the straights and Albon says it’s a sign of how competitive Williams is this year.

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“It’s a proper fight now,” Albon said. “We’ve got the pace in the car, it’s only a couple tenths to the top ten, that is what we had in mind coming into this weekend and then actually we overtook those two-tenths and added a couple of tenths on top and that’s why we’re P8.

“So the motivation when you know that there’s a chance for this every weekend, it’s exciting. I live for that, the team live for that as well. There’s a great energy within the team to see if we can keep this up and apply the pressure with the upgrades we’ve got and let’s see. But for now, we’ll take the victory, the mini-victory… It’s a victory for us.”

Albon was particularly pleased with the way Williams took a step forward from the last race in Saudi Arabia and with strong straight line speed he should be to overtake in race trim on Sunday.

“Very happy, pretty special today. I feel like we optimized everything. Obviously, we had a very good car. Coming from Jeddah where we came out a little bit disappointed, we didn’t quite understand what to do with the tires. We had a bit of a different game plan coming into qualifying today.

“We were struggling in FP1, FP2 and FP3 just getting the tires to work and we executed our plan, it worked. Once the tires work everything else feels so much easier. Maybe others struggled out there compared to us which was the opposite of last time out in Jeddah and that’s it really. Of course, I’m just very happy when you look at the progress we’ve made in twelve months it’s been amazing so motivation is high and we’ve got a job to do tomorrow.

“We haven’t done a race run. That’s the reality of it a little bit more guesswork and it looks like we’ll be racing the cars behind us. We’ll be aggressive, we’ll give it a go. You never know, it’s going to be hard for the people around us.”