Alex Albon: The result was a pleasant surprise!

At Zandvoort, both Williams drivers reached the qualifying final, something they had not seen since the 2017 Italian Grand Prix in almost six years. On the track that dried up after the rain, Alex Albon showed an impressive 4th result, his partner, Logan Sargent, was 10th, but he crashed the car.

Alex Albon (4th): “I have to say it was a special qualifying and I didn’t expect such a result. But since the first practice we are capable of a high pace and on a track that requires a lot of downforce. In fact, in general, it is strange, especially since we excelled in such circumstances. This is of course a very pleasant surprise!

I think on this track it is very important to have confidence in yourself and in your car. It is important that the behavior is predictable, especially on drying asphalt. In fact, it was the only fast lap I did on slicks in the last session, as the first attempt had to be aborted.

In general, the most important thing was to feel the car, to be one with it, and downforce was not so important anymore. I feel comfortable behind the wheel, but I have to admit that if all sessions of the weekend were on dry roads, everyone set up their car correctly and reached the desired speed level, we would not be able to finish 4th to show. result.

However, there is another indirect explanation: in many slow corners on the circuit today the wind was blowing in the opposite direction, and this put an additional aerodynamic load on the front of the car. Let’s hope the wind direction doesn’t change tomorrow!”

Logan Sargent (10th): “My lap in the second session wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to reach the final, and it was fun. It seems to me that the whole weekend went fine, but only until the moment when I made a small mistake in the third session.

I only moved a few millimeters to the side, but the car ended up on the wet part of the track and it is very difficult to run on slicks in such conditions, especially on this track, where there is no room for error. I am very angry that I crashed the car – of course, I did not want this at all.

But there’s nothing that can be done about it, and let this be a lesson to me. Our FW45 has a good race pace and tomorrow I will try to make the best of it. But to be honest, I still don’t know how much the car was damaged, at such a speed it was even difficult for me to estimate at what angle I hit the barrier.

Sure, the front was badly damaged, but I can’t say for sure about the rear, so I don’t know yet if the gearbox survived.”