Carlos Sainz would have liked to do better than 14th place this Friday in Barcelona. The Williams F1 driver admits the team is struggling at the moment in front of his home crowd and fears they won’t be able to aim for the top 10 in qualifying.
“It was tough, as we expected by looking at the corners on this track, because those are exactly the ones where we struggle. I realised that in FP1, we made setup changes for FP2 but couldn’t find as much lap time as we’d hoped and we’re at the back of the field,” said Sainz.
“We need to figure out how to make more progress because right now it doesn’t seem like we’re Q3 contenders. Even if we go in the right direction with setup, we won’t see the performances from Miami and Imola, we’re a second off on every lap.”
Alex Albon was very disappointed with his first day and is worried about a tough weekend ahead for Williams in Spain: “It was tricky, I knew we’d be struggling this weekend, I just hoped it wouldn’t be as bad as it is.”
“I only had one session today so I’ve got some catching up to do. The car is better than last year, just not good enough for now. We can make changes, the car’s not perfect and I can find more performance too. We’ll see, but right now it looks like a tough weekend.”
The technical directive didn’t pose any issues, and Albon even hinted that the team might have benefitted from it: “I think we never expected it to change anything, the car behaves the same, unfortunately it’s just the track. It’s very hot, and the track with these temperatures cancels out the technical directive.”
Victor Martins was behind the wheel of the Thai driver’s car during FP1. The Frenchman enjoyed this first official F1 session: “It was an incredible experience to drive Alex’s car this weekend, and I’m extremely grateful to the team for the opportunity.”
“The car is very powerful and generates a lot of G-forces, but I felt really comfortable in it. I had to stay focused because the team had big expectations for this session, and I think the first free practice was productive for us.”
“Driving alongside the drivers I watched grow up was really special and I enjoyed every lap.”
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