Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: After a productive FP1 session in the dry, we were straight into wet qualifying. The conditions in Q1 were tricky with the track always likely to be ready for slicks before the end of the session but timing the swap off the intermediates was key. We got this about right, but it was tricky during the opening laps on the slick. Both drivers had several good opportunities to set a lap and Alex was able to make the most of them to qualify comfortably for Q2. Nicholas just missed out on a place in Q2 despite doing a good job in the difficult conditions.
We were expecting more rain before the end of qualifying and tried to time the final run in Q2 as late as possible. Frustratingly, Alex wasn’t quite able to get into Q3, which is a shame as Haas showed what a good opportunity it was today; congratulations to them on an excellent pole position. We now move focus to FP2 and the Sprint race. We will get Alex’s car ready for Logan and then we’ll see what we can do in the Sprint. With more tropical weather around for the rest of the weekend, a lot could still happen and we’ll be ready to make the most of any opportunities.
Alex Albon:As a car, what makes our tyres work is different to most people, so we were really doing our own thing today. We did a really good job with P11 and at a track like this, it’s not easy and it was really close out there. We were only a couple tenths behind P5, so I’m really proud and think we did a great job. This hopefully sets us up for the rest of the weekend, but we’ll see what we can do out there tomorrow.
Nicholas Latifi: In these conditions it was quite clear when we went out on the inters that at some point it was going to switch to slicks. So it was tricky to try to judge the conditions and we tried to build the rhythm and get the right lap in at the end and I think I was among one of the first few cars to switch to slicks, so it could have gone either way. It was frustrating as you hope to be able to make a bit of a difference in the session, but we had some issues during the session as well, and without that I think there was room for a bit more.
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