Williams F1 driver Alex Albon takes 9th in qualifying for the Japanese GP this Saturday. Albon capped it off in Q3 clocking a 1:27.615.
During qualifying, Albon’s Williams was not exactly a stunner. Barely making it out of Q2 with only 39 hundredths covering himself and Pierre Gasly, a P9 is certainly something to write home about in the close fight.
Williams struggling in a couple of corners at the F1 Japanese GP according to Albon
Speaking in the print media zone after qualifying, the Thai driver feels content with the performance he did in qualifying despite the difficulties they had in certain corners.
He was audibly pumped on the radio during Q2 when his engineer told him he had made gains in turn 11.
“Yeah, not bad. Happy. Another Q3 and another track that we can take off the list and say that we’ve got a fairly consistent car. So I’m happy.
“I feel like there’s maybe a couple of corners on the track this weekend that we’ve been relatively poor at and just losing in two places and then stagnant everywhere else around the lap.”
Albon said that something in his Williams car clicked on his final lap around the track, and that the conditions helped his qualifying run as he beat Ollie Bearman to P9 on the grid. It was so close behind the top 5 that a 0.061s improvement would have been enough for P6.
“My best lap felt different to all my other laps. I don’t know… we need to kind of go around it and figure out what changed. But the car felt good and it felt more what I wanted it to feel like.
“It’s the balance that I’ve been chasing pretty much the whole weekend for. But because it was only on that one lap, it was almost like I had to readjust a bit my driving style.
“And when you’re kind of going into each corner with a different balance, you aren’t always totally on top of the car.
“So obviously, I’m sure if you ask anyone from P5 to P9 or P10, they would say they could have been P5. I was half a tenth off, six hundredths off and there was a bit there, but still very good.”
Wiliams’ struggles at the F1 Japanese GP according to Albon
The Williams driver said that Sector 1 was where they struggled tremendously. It didn’t help that the tailwind whole weekend did not help their overheating tyres.
As that was not an issue on his final attempt in the Williams FW47, he could extract more out of the car.
“Yeah, we were struggling a lot in sector one. And it was a tailwind today. And it was hurting us quite a lot and making us overheat our tyres quite quickly around the lap, and it was really hard to managw that.
“So, on the final run, I didn’t basically have it. And I felt like, when I looked at the times and saw how close it was, I was like, oh. If I could have built and knew that that was going to happen, obviously I could have got a tenth or a tenth and a half, and that would have been 6th then.
“We can’t complain, really. We’ve put ourselves in a position to score points, and that’s what’s important.”
Albon made a point that Williams has been having trouble through the ‘S’ curves, adding that Racing Bulls and Haas hold a clear advantage over them in turn 6.
“Yeah, [Turn] 6 was a problem corners for us all weekend. It’s been our weakest corner, and we’re trying everything to get it around there a bit quicker. Especially when we compare to our midfield rivals, like Racing Bulls, they’re extremely strong around there, compared to us, even the Haas as well.
“It’s a bit of a focus point for us as a team to figure out why we’re slow through there. If we could have fixed that, we would have been quite comfortably in that good spot [P6].”
Albon expecting a dull F1 Japanese GP if it is dry
The former Red Bull driver thinks that the Racing Bulls has the best race pace in division 2 this weekend, with Hadjar P7.
If the race starts out as wet, nailing the call to switch to dries at the right time will make or break your day, says the 29-year-old.
“Yes, I think RBs have the best race pace in the midfield I talk about. I think we’re second best in that midfield. In the end, it’s going to come down to the rain and strategy, and let’s see what happens.
“I don’t know what you guys have got, but it seems to be drying more and more, becoming more and more of a dry race. It should maybe start wet and move to dry, that’s what we’ve got at the minute. It means the call to switch over will be the most important part of the race.”
He then said that the tyre degredation will not pose any problems come tomorrow in the race if the 53-lap contest is dry.
“The deg is so low right now with this resurfaced tarmac, so it’s going to be quite a boring race [if it’s dry],” he added.
