Though Williams endured a tricky weekend at Barcelona, the Grove-based squad grew to become the one group to have set a greater lap time in qualifying than in earlier season. F1Technical’s senior author Balazs Szabo delivers his newest evaluation.
Williams had arrived at Barcelona with low expectations as that they had anticipated their FW47 to battle on a circuit which historically exposes the weaknesses of their automobiles lately.
The qualifying session noticed Carlos Sainz get knocked out in Q1 whereas his team-mate Alexander Albon did not progress into the ultimate section. The race then turned out to be a tricky afternoon for Williams.
Albon had contact initially and was compelled huge. The Thai driver didn’t solely lose a number of locations, however he was additionally compelled to pit for a brand new entrance wing. He had an additional contact in a while as he collided with Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson.
The incident resulted in one other entrance wing injury for Albon and he was additionally handed a 10-second penalty for leaving the observe and gaining a bonus. After serving his penalty, he elected to retire from the race.
His team-mate additionally had contact on the primary lap which led to entrance wing injury. Together with his injury having been a smaller one, Sainz refused to pit for a brand new wing, however he misplaced efficiency on account of it.
Though he completed the race, he failed to attain any factors at his residence race the place he has all the time completed within the factors because the begin of his F1 profession.
Regardless of the tough weekend for Williams, the Grove-based outfit was the one group to have set a greater lap time in qualifying than in earlier season. Albon’s spectacular Q2 time was over half a second faster than what the British outfit achieved in 2024.
The 9 different groups failed to seek out any enhancements in comparison with final season, with Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren having been slightly below two tenths of a second slower than in 2024.
Highlighting Ferrari’s present woes in qualifying, the Scuderia was over three tenths of a second slower than a 12 months in the past. Haas suffered the largest loss in comparison with final 12 months’s qualifying, having been over seven tenths of a second slower than in 2024.
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