The Williams driver finished Q2 in 14th position, over half a second from advancing into Q3. This is the third time in four races he has finished qualifying in fourteenth.
Despite this, Albon believes the car is heading in the right direction following experimenting with the set-up in FP3.
“I don’t know, I feel like, okay all weekend it’s actually the best the car’s felt all year so far, so that’s positive. Tried some slight differences with the set-up, nothing extreme but they’re definitely positive and they went in the right direction so I’m happy.”
Albon struggled with tailwind into the last two corners that has hampered many throughout the weekend, one of these being two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso who caused a red flag in FP3 after losing the rear of his AMR24 going into the last corner and ending up in the wall.
“I had the same car because I was happy with FP3 and the wind picked up and that’s not good for us. So Quali, push it a little bit more, tyres get a little bit hotter.
“We’ve been struggling last two corners all weekend especially with the tailwind through the last corner.”
The Thai driver emphasised the need to figure out how to handle the final corner as it sets up your run down the rest of the main straight and the only DRS zone around the Imola Circuit.
The Thai could be looking backwards throughout tomorrow’s race.
“The problem is now with the race, if you’re not good in the last corner you’re going to have a really tough race so I hope that the wind changes to a headwind or something.”
He also spoke on his issues with his tyres overheating throughout a qualifying lap, seeming to be confused as to how other drivers aren’t struggling as much.
“I try different things, I try managing different areas of the quali lap. I’m not sure how many people manage as much as me on quali laps, just trying to keep the tyre alive basically for the last two corners or the last part of the lap.
“Very typical for me in Q2, improve every corner up until a certain point and then when I get to this kind of midway point of the lap the tyres have overheated and then I’m actually losing that time compared to my Q1 laps and that happened again during this lap.
“So yeah, it’s not easy, not easy.”
