The Williams Racing team arrive at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix on the back of their first points score of the season in the Hungarian Grand Prix, with Nicholas Latifi and George Russell finishing an excellent seventh and eighth at the Hungaroring.
Latifi ran as high as third in the opening laps in Budapest but lost positions to faster cars as the race went on, but the Canadian was able to secure his first top ten finish of the season in eighth, which became seventh once Sebastian Vettel was disqualified from second place after the race.
The Canadian says it was good to unwind and recharge the batteries after Hungary, and he hopes the positive momentum from Hungary will continue into the race at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend.
“It was great to unwind and recharge over the summer break, but I’m super excited to get back behind the wheel now,” said Latifi. “Spa is definitely one of the tracks on the calendar that is very fast and flowing which I like, and it’s always a great track for racing so I’m looking forward to that.
“We’re carrying a lot of positive momentum after the last race, but we know we still have a job to do each time we show up at a track and we’ll take one race at a time. I can’t wait to get going!”
“We are entering the second half of the season in great spirits” – George Russell
Team-mate Russell says the summer shutdown was great, but the racing driver in him wanted to be racing again almost as soon as it started!
Russell was highly emotional after scoring points in Hungary, his first top ten finish for Williams, and only his second top ten result of his Formula 1 career having taken a ninth place in his one-off appearance for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team in the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.
And the Briton says the aim now for the team is to deliver the best possible result in each and every race weekend in order to add to the ten points they scored in Hungary.
“The summer shutdown was great but even after one week off, I was raring to go again,” said Russell. “After a strong points haul for the team in Budapest, we are entering the second half of the season in great spirits.
“We are now focused on delivering the best possible performance at Spa this weekend, and the rest of this triple-header, with our aim being to increase our points tally.”
