Australian GP: Challenging Friday for Williams F1 Team

Alex Albon:
"The first race weekend with the new regs was always going to be a challenge and so it wasn't our smoothest day. We got a bit caught out struggling with some data and getting in tune with the car but we will review our learnings from both free practice sessions and how we can apply that to tomorrow. We have some work to do in understanding the deployment around this track and what’s the most efficient way to deploy and harvest. We’re going to spend a lot of time overnight working with the simulator team and find simulation tools to try and come up with a better setup for tomorrow. There’s a lot we can improve ahead of qualifying and it is all part of the learning curve."

Angelos Tsiaparas, Chief Engineer:
"Melbourne poses particular challenges in terms of energy and deployment with the new regulations - it is one of the 'energy poor' circuits, as we call it - so a lot of the focus on the engineering side has been on driving styles and techniques we can come up with to maximise energy harvesting and deployment, and we have another free practice tomorrow to try and optimise that ahead of qualifying. What we observed in Bahrain testing remains the case - the top four teams are ahead and the midfield is close together, so our aspiration is to try and be at the top of the midfield weekend after weekend."