Alex Albon produced arguably his best performance since returning to Formula 1 at the Belgian Grand Prix, after defending tenth place like a lion all the way to the chequered flag to score a well deserved point.
It was a magical weekend for the Thai driver, who made it to Qualifying Three purely on merit after an outstanding Saturday. Due to a plethora of grid penalties for other drivers, Albon actually started the race from sixth; however, quickly dropped a few places.
Despite losing some ground early on, Albon remained in the points places with help from his FW44, which was nothing short of a rocket ship down the straights. Albon was able to overtake people with ease, with many mentioning just how fast the Williams Racing car was during the race. Towards the end, Albon led a DRS train of five cars; however, none could overtake the apparent mile-wide Williams.
It was a brilliant performance from Albon, who hailed the race as one of his “personal bests” after finishing tenth.
“This was one of the tougher races I’ve done in my career and also one of my personal bests. We did the best job we could today and it’s a good feeling. On the lap to the grid, it was clear that tyre degradation was going to be really high and hotter track temperatures than we have had the rest of the weekend made tyre wear worse. On the final stint I was thinking about three-stopping, but we held on, kept Lance [Stroll] behind and then it was about not making any mistakes.
“I think, as a whole, we executed the weekend from FP1 onwards well, maximised the positive of our car being quick on the straights, and made no mistakes. We experimented, made the best of the tyres in qualifying and maximised the results potential in the race, so I’m very happy. As a team, we had a complete weekend and that’s what it shows; when you don’t have the fastest car but you do everything right, you can still come away with a point or two.”
“There must have been a lot of marbles” – Nicholas Latifi
It was another dreadful Grand Prix for Nicholas Latifi, who must be wondering if his days in the paddock are coming to an end. Despite being eliminated in Qualifying One, Latifi started eleventh due to the amount of drivers who had grid penalties.
This gave the Canadian driver a great opportunity to run towards the points places. Alas, it wasn’t to be, as on the second lap on the exit of Les Combes, Latifi ran wide and caught a wheel in the gravel, resulting in a spin across the circuit after keeping his foot down. Whilst spinning across the track, his front-wing caught a helpless Valtteri Bottas, who span into the gravel himself as a result.
Latifi went on to finish the race in eighteenth, the last of the running drivers after Bottas retired from the spin, and Lewis Hamilton retired on the opening lap.
The Williams driver blamed “a lot of marbles” as to why he ran wide, with the spin having surprised the exit-bound Canadian.
“I went a little off the line in turn six, there must have been a lot of marbles from the junior categories and I understeered right off. It felt like driving in the wet on slick tyres. I dipped the wheel in the gravel, and it spun the rear around which caught me by surprise quite a bit.
“I thought I would go straight into the gravel and come back on slowly, but Instead I spun across the track as a result and made contact with Valtteri [Bottas]. My race was compromised from there as that set of tyres we needed to make the two-stop strategy work were damaged. One to forget but we’ll try and bounce back In Zandvoort.”
