It was an indifferent day for Williams Racing, as they aim to score some more points in round sixteen of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship at the Italian Grand Prix. The team found out that their only point scorer this season, Alex Albon, would be unable to race due to being diagnosed with appendicitis. This late absence of Albon meant that Nyck de Vries got an opportunity to make his Formula 1 debut.
Nicholas Latifi qualified poorly and didn’t help his chances for being in a F1 seat next season, after being out-qualified by De Vries in his first F1 outing. De Vries did manage to get out of the first qualifying session and finished thirteenth, but he will start inside the top ten after multiple grid penalties.
Williams’ head of vehicle performance Dave Robson, was pleased with the team’s progress today and especially with De Vries, but he admitted that both drivers could have finished higher up.
“Firstly, we send our best wishes to Alex and wish him a quick recovery. Secondly, we welcome Nyck to the team for his Formula One race debut.
“The team reacted very well to the news this morning that Nyck would drive for the rest of the weekend. We were able to prepare the car for him quickly and adapt the FP3 run programme to give him some productive track time.
“He reacted to the challenge expertly, helped by his running on Friday and his experience of the FW44 in Barcelona. He inherited Alex’s setup and was immediately happy, requiring only a change to the front wing flap angle to adapt the car to his style.
“Qualifying in Monza is usually tricky as drivers look to balance tyre preparation and track position. Today was no exception but we got both drivers into reasonable positions in Q1. However, both struggled a little bit with braking in a tow.
“Nicky had to abandon his final effort in Q1 and Nyck lost some time in Sector 1 but was able to recover and set a good laptime. Although this laptime was deleted for leaving the track, his earlier lap was good enough to progress to Q2.
“Nyck did an excellent job today and although he was frustrated not to put the final lap in Q2 together, he still starts inside the top 10 tomorrow. We have a lot to review with him to prepare him for tomorrow but we’re confident that both he and Nicky can have strong races tomorrow.“
