Elbon: I foresee problems due to rubber degradation

In the first practice, Alex Albon lost his place at the wheel to Nick de Vries, so he will have one less session to prepare for the main events of the Spanish weekend than his partner, but it is unlikely that this will affect his results. will influence, because the circuit in Barcelona that he knows very well.

Alex Albon (18th): “I think after skipping the first practice that Nick was working on, I quickly caught up to the second session. Every rider has put in a lot of laps on this track, so we know it like the back of our hand.

Training showed that we are not as fast as we would like, so in the evenings particular attention should be paid to the analysis of the collected information to understand how we can improve in preparation for qualifying.

We can already see that this weekend will be difficult due to the degradation of rubber. So far there have been no specific problems with the tires during the season, but I foresee that I will have to save the rubber this weekend due to the special nature of the track. However, this factor will make qualifying and the race even more interesting.”

Nicholas Latific (19th): “Today we mainly tested the effectiveness of different components and settings, because we didn’t bring any new products to Barcelona, ​​but we had to solve some problems and try to find the optimal balance. Although, to be honest, we are still a long way from that.

We have to rack our brains because we face many problems, they are all different and they all need to be addressed. I think the first session was mostly unfortunate – I got the impression that I was driving a completely unknown car.

But for our long-term program it was important to gather information, especially on a track like this, because we know how the car should behave here. We managed to understand what options we have to work with institutions, but I think there will be a lot of work in the evening, because you have to delve into all the details and in the process of preparing for the qualification work with fine settings.

Nick de Vries (18th in the first session): “I have to admit that I was very nervous before practice, because the Formula 1 debut is a special event, and I am grateful for this opportunity.

But when you get in the car, when the engine starts, you immediately forget everything that is happening around you. You stand face to face with the machine, all nervousness disappears and you concentrate completely on the tasks to be solved.

And these tasks are not easy, because I do not know this car or the characteristics of such rubber, so everything was new to me. But gradually I adapted and in the end I was quite happy with the results of my work. I’m always very self-critical, so I think it was possible to show faster speeds, but my first experience behind the wheel of Williams was quite positive.