Belgian GP: Difficult Sprint for Williams Racing


By Williams Racing
July 30 2023

The Williams Racing Team would come away from the 2023 Belgian GP Sprint with Alex Albon finishing 12th and Logan Sargeant 16th. For both drivers it was a race that saw them again having to cope with a drying track and such conditions continued to see both drivers struggle with tyre degredation of their intermediate tyres. There was little that either could do apart from managing the situation as best they could. For Logan his race would have the added issue of a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Another difficult race but hopefully one that the team can take away information from to assist them in Sunday's main race.

 
  Williams Racing Belgian GP Sprint Review
 
Sargeant
 
Sargeant 

Logan Sargeant:
"A difficult Sprint race out there and in those drying conditions the tyres were really struggling to hang on. All in all, considering I was the second Williams car to pit, I extracted the maximum from our situation today. I could’ve potentially had a slightly better Q2 by finishing that lap. Hopefully if it’s dry conditions tomorrow it should suit our car better and we should have an opportunity to move forward."

 
Albon

Alex Albon:
"That was really tough. We’ve been struggling all weekend in this greasy weather, where we just can’t seem to get on top of it. We got some understanding of it during the Sprint Shootout; however, we were just putting new tyres on the car. As soon as we did more than 9 corners, the tyres were overheating. It’s good to go through these periods where it becomes clear to us that we’re weak in these conditions, and it’s obvious when you see the tyres overheating quickly. With a lower downforce set up, it normally works around here, however you don’t see the benefit of the straights when you’re sliding through corners with the heat building and the tyres continuously overheating. If the race can stay dry tomorrow, we’ll be in a good place."

Robson

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
"
Another day of very mixed weather. We were better today on the Inters at low fuel but in the drying conditions they didn’t last very long so we opted to go for a single timed lap at the end of the 2nd part of the Shootout but were unable to set a lap time when the session ended early following the red flag. It would have been good to try the car on a slick tyre in the final part of the Sprint Shootout but otherwise it was a good session.

The Sprint race was difficult as the track dried rapidly, which increased the degradation on the Intermediates. There wasn’t enough time to move to the slick tyres and make up for the pit stop. Therefore, the drivers had to manage the Inters to the end of the race. It was a difficult day but provided some good learning ahead of the Grand Prix tomorrow."

 

Albon

 
Albon
 

Track: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Lap Length: 7.004 km
Pos    Driver Team Time/Gap (Fastest Lap) Grid
12 A ALBON Williams Racing +26.303 (2:03.674) 12
16 L SARGEANT Williams Racing +37.571 (2:03.482) 13
 
Albon