Alex Albon and Nicolas Latifi are both optimistic about their chances in the upcoming F1 season, as Bahrain pre-season testing has come to an end. It was an up-and-down handful of days for the British team, after a fire caused damage to the rear of Williams F1 Team’s 2022 challenger, but 142 laps of testing on day three has helped raise morale within the team.
Albon, who broke his contract with Red Bull to return to F1 with Williams in 2022, is looking forward to his first race back next week – “Pre-season testing is now finished and next time we’re out on track it will finally be a race weekend!”
“We got some good mileage in over the course of the test and I feel like we’ve ticked all our boxes, despite losing some time on Friday. In terms of the car’s performance, I think there’s some more to come from us and I’m excited to keep pushing next weekend and throughout the course of the season to get the most out of the FW44.”
“Overall, it’s been a positive and incredibly valuable test and the team have done a great job, especially in some challenging circumstances.”
After being forced to make up for Friday’s lost time on Saturday, Latifi was reflective in his statement for Williams, claiming that he is happy with the amount of data they have collected – despite the issues that were overcome from day two:
“It was obviously not a fully ideal test, specifically with the issue we had on day two, but I think the team did a great job of coming together to make the most of day three. There was a lot of good teamwork from both the day and night crew to get the car repaired and all the engineers pulled together to put us in the best position to maximise day three.”
“We did a lot of good work, learned a lot and did a lot of laps. That was good for me to try to make up the lost mileage from yesterday and now there’s a lot of data to go over to see how we can be in the best shape possible for the first race next week.“
With next Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix being the first weekend in the newest generation of F1, Williams will be hoping they can work their way up the field and improve upon their disappointing seasons in the last few years.
