French GP: Frustrating qualifying for Williams Racing


By Andrew Hooper
July 23 2022

After an encouraging final Saturday practice session that saw the Williams drivers finish in 8th and 12th qualifying for the 0222 French GP would turn out to be an frustrating session with Alex Albon and Nicholas Latiif finishing in 15th and 20th positions. But at least Alex was still ablew to mix it up with other regular midfield teams but it was later revealed that both had had their own issues during the session which hampered their performances.

 
 Williams Racing French GP Qualifying
 
Latifi
 

Team Summary:
Qualifying for the 2022 French Grand prix would begin with the announcement that both Sainz and Magnussen will be starting from the rear of the grid due to engine related penalties. For Williams they had completed their final practice session finishing in eighth and 12th so the prospects for qualifying were quite positive. The eighteen minute period would commence with Stroll out first followed by others all on the soft tyre. Schumacher would set a 1m:33.858 only to see Stroll quicker then Gasly would move ahead but Leclerc would beat that with a 1m:31.727 followed now by Perez and Tsunoda. Bottas was now third followed by Tsunoda, Zhou and Gasly sixth.

Verstappen was now second followed by Perez and Norris. Bottas was fifth followed by Hamilton and Russell. Alonso would improve to be fifth while the Williams pair were currently 12th and 17th. Sainz was now third with five minutes remaining followed by Perez, Norris, Alonso, Bottas, Hamilton, Russell, and Ocon tenth. The Williams drivers were now 13th and 18th as we had just Sainz out on the track. But this would change rapidly as the majority of the field returned. With the end of the period the Williams drivers would finish in 15th and 20th.
 
Albon
 
The second period would see Sainz set a 1m:31.081 followed by Leclerc, Verstappen, Perez, Hamilton, Alonso, Russell, Magnussen, Norris and Tsunoda tenth. The remaining Williams would finish in 15th and out of qualifying. The final period would see Leclerc take pole with a 1m:30.872 followed by Verstappen, Perez, Hamilton, Norris, Russell, Alonso and Tsunoda with Sainz and Magnussen not setting a time. So for Williams Racing they would complete the session in 15th and 20th. Coming off their FP3 form the results could be considered to be a disappointment for the team but equally for Alex to be mixing it amongst other midfield teams was a positive result for the team. Just a shame that Nicholas was again slowest. But post qualifying interviews did shed some light on the reasons behind this.
 
Albon
 

Alex Albon:
With just over ten minutes remaining Alex would come out for his first soft tyre run. Alex would complete his flying lap with a time of 1m:33.423 to be 12th. Alex would pit having completed just a single flying lap. He would return for a second soft tyre run. But it would go wrong for Alex as he spun during his run as the period ended. He would drop to 15th and he was back in the pits and now 16th and out of qualifying. But then we would have other drivers lose their times due to track limits seeing him now 15th and into Q2. With a 1m:34.023 Alex would move into seventh as he completed his first run in Q2 but dropped to 14th as he waited in his pit. His second run would see him set a 1m:33.307 to be 10th but would drop to 15th and would finish his qualifying. Post qualifying interviews had Alex explaining that the increase in the wind had made the session very difficult compared to the earlier practice.

Nicholas Latifi:
Nicholas would follow Alex out for his soft tyre run. Nicholas would finish with a 1m:33.857 to be 16th. He would drop to be 17th and would pit after a two lap run. This would become 18th as he prepared to return for a second run. He would quickly return for his second run on new soft tyres. He would finish with a 1m:33.794 to remain 18th. But with other drivers improving he would finish 20th and slowest. It was later revealed that Nicholas had a variety of small issues with his car that contributed to a loss of lap time on his final run. He felt that he should have been higher up the order.
 

Albon