No miracle at Suzuka
The period of great results crisis for Williams continues, appearing decidedly in difficulty even in the last appointment with the Japanese Grand Prix. After Carlos Sainz‘s 9° place in China, which had given the Grove-based team high hopes for the Suzuka weekend, the Spanish driver himself had actually been very clear and honest about the potential of the FW48 in the pre-weekend press conference, considering the car still too heavy and not expecting any kind of ‘miracle’ on the Japanese circuit.
Break until May
Confirmation arrived promptly with 17° place in the race, commented on by the former Ferrari driver as follows: “We got the most out of the car. Furthermore, another solid start and a well-managed pit stop allowed us to have our best possible race, so I am satisfied. The team and I are working well to understand this car and these regulations, and I feel that we will face this early break ready to make real progress on the car’s performance. We need to make sure we make the most of these five weeks and arrive in Miami in a better position for the season ahead. Finally, I am very happy that Ollie is okay after the heavy impact,” he concluded in reference to Bearman’s bad accident, adding further considerations on the incident.
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An even more lackluster Sunday for Alex Albon, 20° at the finish line and last among those classified: “I was stuck in traffic during the race, so nothing special happened to me and it turned into a sort of testing session, as we wanted to try some things on the front wing to understand it better and collect data. The car is performing well considering our characteristics and the team has worked hard to bring it to a good level in these three weeks. Realistically we are getting what we can get and we are racing our best, but we just need to solve some problems and increase the car’s speed a bit. We have a lot of work to do, but now we have about five weeks available as a team, so there is a lot we can improve on and I think this will be useful for us to come back stronger in Miami.”
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