Albon: It’s a shame we didn’t take more extreme measures

In a rare event in Austria on Friday, Logan Sargent took the lead from his Williams teammate Alex Albon. The American even managed to reach the second session in qualifying for the sprint, while Alex dropped out in the first session and only showed a 19th result.

Alex Albon (19th): “To be honest, it wasn’t even a matter of mistakes, I just didn’t get through Turns 3 and 4 well enough. The difficulties are partly due to the fact that the balance of the car was far from the best – we couldn’t achieve the optimal image, I don’t even know why.

I tried to do something, to somehow change the flying style, but it led nowhere. In fact, I only had one attempt in qualifying and we couldn’t do that well. We can only regret that we did not dare to take more extreme measures when adjusting the settings between training and qualification, but that is how it turned out.

Absolutely, tomorrow we will continue to adjust the settings, trying to get the most out of the car.”

Logan Sargent (15th): “During the first session I tried to gradually increase the speed, but at the same time I understood that I would have to do a particularly good lap in the second session. I made such an attempt, but I couldn’t get through Turns 1 and 3 correctly, after which it became clear that I had to make up the rest of the lap somehow.

To be honest, I almost did it but I got into the gravel at turn 6 which made it a bad attempt. However, I am happy with my work and in tomorrow’s sprint we will start from a good position.

Track conditions change from session to session, and I think we have to try to anticipate this and take it into account when choosing the settings. It seems to me that together with the team we have done a good job of increasing the pace from training to qualifying. We will try to continue to act in much the same way, but I can say with certainty that compared to Barcelona we have taken a step forward.”