Austrian GP: Williams Racing come away with positive race

Nicholas Latifi:
"We sustained floor damage from running over some debris at the start of the race and I ran wide on one curb. Towards the end of the first stint I could feel the balance getting worse. Beginning of the second stint there was a lack of downforce and pace. The decision was to retire the car to save the engine mileage and we'll be ready to go again In France."

Alex Albon:
"It was a fun race. We took risks, we were bold and I had to push a little bit too hard on the tyres to keep up with Valtteri as he was a little bit quicker than us, so I knew what I was doing wasn’t kind to the tyres but I was trying to stay close to him. You risk and you push to fight for points and today it didn’t quite work out for us, but I still feel it was a good race. The whole race we were more or less matching the McLarens, we hit a bit of traffic here and there but I was really happy with our pace and we’ve definitely made a step forward this weekend. It was the first proper race with the new aero upgrade that we have and there’s a lot learnt from today so we can look at the data and come back stronger in France."

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
"Today was a good recovery after the result yesterday. Alex drove well and the strategy worked well. Having got into the top 10 with only 10 laps to go, it was disappointing to miss out on a point. However, we had been battling with Bottas since the first pitstop and it was a tight race that could’ve gone either way. At least we got a full race completed with the updated car, which gives some data to go through before we run again in France.

Nicholas suffered with some floor damage early in the race, which cost him a lot of downforce and made the car very difficult to drive. As the damage worsened, we elected to retire him before more significant damage occurred.

After the damage done in Silverstone last week, to come straight to the Red Bull Ring and for Alex to be competitive throughout the weekend and for Nicholas to continue his good qualifying performance, is a good result for the entire team who worked very hard to get us back into this position."

Track: Red Bull Ring, Austria