Qualifying Notes
- Alex Albon qualified 16th and Nicholas Latifi 19th for the Monaco Grand Prix
- Alex ran the soft Pirelli tyres, continuing to improve throughout the session. He set his fastest time, a 1:13.611, on his final flying lap of the Q1 session
- Nicholas also set his fastest lap on his final run of Q1, posting a 1:14.403 on the soft compound tyre
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: We managed to improve the car again overnight and Alex particularly was very comfortable in FP3. We had a good plan for Q1 and both drivers had good opportunities on a clear track. The late red flag was very frustrating as it cost us the chance of setting our final lap when the track and tyres were in the best possible state. We led the pack out for the final lap scramble after the flag, but we couldn’t get the tyres back into the ideal state and although both drivers improved, it wasn’t quite enough to qualify for Q2.
It is going to be hard to race from 16th and 19th on the grid, however, with a risk of showers tomorrow, anything may yet happen.
Alex Albon: It’s a very frustrating result; I feel like we had much more to offer today. It’s such a tight window to get the tyres in the right place, and something like a red flag really disrupts our progress as everything cools down. I was happy with the laps that I did put in and the car felt good, so from that perspective it’s an even more frustrating day. These street tracks do seem to suit our car, so I think we were all hoping for more, but we’ll go again tomorrow and it’s possible that the weather may present some opportunities.
Nicholas Latifi: In the free practice sessions I was never comfortable with the car balance and only by qualifying did I get what I needed. That meant that I went into qualifying with a different car from FP1, FP2 and FP3, and it was a case of starting again to find the limits of a car. The car was much better in qualifying, and I was discovering a car that I felt had much more potential in and a lot more lap time but at the end, we had the red flag. It’s frustrating, I know I need to do better, and we also need to understand these issues with the car and reduce compromising our qualifying.
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