Alex Albon made an excellent start to the Italian Grand Prix, after ending the opening day at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in tenth-place.
The Anglo-Thai driver looked strong around Monza, where he has so far proven to be considerably better once again than team-mate Nicholas Latifi who languished at the back. Albon ended the opening day just under 1.2 seconds behind pacesetter Carlos Sainz Jr, in what was a promising day for Williams Racing.
Albon is confident that he’s “in the mix” this weekend, but recognises that the team must “maximise everything”.
“It wasn’t a bad today and I feel like we’re in the mix. It’s definitely close out there, so we need to make sure we maximise everything for tomorrow. Ultimately, we know what direction we need to go in and with the long run pace, we need to make sure we get on top of the tyres, but I’m happy with how today went.”
“We’ll do our homework overnight” – Nicholas Latifi
It was a bad day at the office for Latifi, after the Canadian driver ended Friday in nineteenth-place. To make matters even worse, the under-pressure driver was virtually 1.2 seconds slower than his team-mate, around a circuit that only takes just over eighty-seconds to lap.
Latifi certainly ended the first day scratching his head, after what he labelled as a “tricky start”. Despite the bad start, though, Latifi is set to start higher up the field than usual, with six drivers set for grid penalties.
Latifi thinks there is “more to come tomorrow”, with the Canadian hoping to overcome his difficult start to the weekend.
“A tricky start to the weekend so far. It does feel quite different when comparing to Zandvoort with everyone bringing their lowest downforce configurations. There’s still some time to find from my side. We made a good step in FP2 but there’s still more to come tomorrow, so we’ll do our homework tonight.”
