Dutch Grand Prix 2023 – Race

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Overall, it was a really strong result for the team today; to finish 8th in Zandvoort with our main rivals out of the points is a great result, however, having worked our way back to 6th place with Alex, the timing of the final rain interruption was frustrating.

The car worked well this weekend and whilst there are a few things that we could’ve done better today, we can be pleased with the result. We’ll review the race and understand how we could’ve done better in the changeable conditions and we’ll be stronger next time.

The team did an excellent job to repair Logan’s car overnight and it was a shame that he was unable to finish the race. We are still investigating the cause of his DNF, but he suffered with a loss of hydraulics.

We now look forward to Monza, which is the second ATA event of the season and quite a different challenge to this weekend in Zandvoort.

Alex Albon: You could argue we should’ve pitted earlier at the start of the race, but we stuck to our guns and it worked for us with tyre management, managing for 40 odd laps on the Softs, and you can only do that with a car that’s good and it felt strong all weekend. It was very easy to control the front and rear degradation, just with tools and driving, always able to shift the balance where I needed it to be. Then we pitted for Mediums and begun making our way up the order towards P5 and P4 and I thought it was perfect, until I found out about the rain.

We need to review that second pitstop call; it’s so tricky because I didn’t pit and for the first half of the lap I thought I’d overcut the two cars in front of me but in 30 seconds it went from a soft to a full wet tyre and we lost out on the undercut. It happens; it feels like we finish today slightly disappointed we didn’t finish in 6th, but 8th is still an amazing result for us, especially considering we’re here on merit this weekend. It’s been our strongest weekend yet and the best I’ve felt in the car in my time at Williams, so there’s so many positives to take from here. 

Logan Sargeant: It was a tricky start to the race with the rain coming down. It looks like the Inters were maybe the better option, but we tried to survive out there on the slicks and, after yesterday, I was just trying to be extremely cautious and build up nicely, but I lost a bit too much tyre temperature in those wet conditions. Then, unfortunately, it didn’t end the way we wanted it to. I touched the kerb and it seems that from the impact of that we had an issue with hydraulics and power steering. Once I lost that assistance there was really nothing I could do. I still need to watch it back, but we need to look into what went wrong. I want to say a huge thank you to the team for getting the car turned around for today.