Canadian GP: Mixed qualifying for Williams Racing

Team Summary:
With the track remaining wet from the earlier practice session and with the rain still present the qualifying session for the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix was going to be a tricky session. The start of the opening eighteen minute period would see a rush of drivers all out on the full wet tyre. Both Williams cars were out running as the first times started to come in as we had Russell quickest with a 1m:36.688 followed by Verstappen and Vettel. Alonso would move into second but it would all change as Gasly went second followed by Sainz, Verstappen, and Ocon. But Sainz would move back to second.

Magnussen would go then quickest with a 1m:34.893 but Bottas would move ahead only to see Russell again quickest only to see Verstappen return to the top with a 1m:33.200. But again it would change with Sainz quickest with a 1m:32.781 from Alonso and Russell. The Williams drivers were currently 16th and 20th. But this would change to see them 17th and 18th while Sainz remained quickest but now with Leclerc second. But again Verstappen would go quickest with a 1m:32.219. Alonso was second followed by Sainz, Magnussen, Leclerc, Ocon, Russell, Ricciardo, Bottas, and Zhou tenth. And we would see one Williams make it into Q2.

With the start of the second period there would be a mix of tyres been used with both full wet and intermediate tyres being used. The remaining Williams was using intermediates and after the first times Alonso was quickest with a 1m:30.910 from Verstappen, Sainz, Ocon, Bottas, Russell, Hamilton, Perez, Alex and Schumacher. But Perez would go off and with his car stuck in the barriers the session would be Red Flagged. Perez's car would be recovered and the period restarted. So with nine minutes remaining cars would be waiting at the pit exit including the remaining Williams all on intermediate tyres.

Alex Albon:
Alex would be first out for Williams in the opening period using the full wet tyre. A 1m:43.768 from Alex would see him 18th but his lap time would be deleted seeing him last. But a 1m:38.107 would see Alex 13th dropping to 14th. He would improve with a 1m:37.401 but remained 14th. He would drop to 16th but such was the pace of change Alex would set a 1m:36.272 only to remain 15th and close to the cut off. Even a 1m:35.898 would see Alex remaining 15th. He would drop to 17th with just a few minutes remaining and with a 1m:34.047 would see Alex move up to be 12th dropping to 14th. And this is where he would finish the period and would make it into Q2.

Alex would be out very early in Q2 running on the intermediate tyre. He would set a 1m:33.231 to be second dropping to ninth but he would have a moment when he would go off but was able to recover having being quite lucky not to badly damage his car. He would pit with a Red Flag and would have a front wing change fixing some of the damage when he went off. He was currently ninth. His first time on the restart would see him 11th but with a 1m:29.998 would see him fourth dropping to seventh. He would drop to ninth then 11th but with a 1m:27.690 he would move back into the top ten currently eighth the tenth. He would drop to 12th as the final minutes of the period started. On his final lap he would set a 1m:26.858 to be 12th missing out by just a few tenths.

Nicholas Latifi:
Nicholas would be the second last driver to come out for the opening period of Canadian qualifying. Nicholas would set a 1m:48.817 to be 19th. He would improve with a 1m:43.399 and then a 1m:37.728 but remained slowest. A 1m:36.546 would see Nicholas now 18th one place behind his team-mate. He would finish the period in 19th and was out of qualifying.