REPORT: No points from Qatar
Williams Racing leave Lusail with a DNF and P15 finish
Published
01 DEC 2024
Est. reading time
4 min
Two separate Lap 1 incidents impacted Williams Racing's hopes of picking up points from the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix after Franco Colapinto retired and Alex Albon made a tyre gamble that ended his race in P15.
Albono was running in the top-10 positions after the team switched his car to Pirelli's red-walled soft compound tyres during one of three Safety Car slowdowns, but fell back in the final laps.
It was a rollercoaster 57 laps for Alex, who recovered from opening-lap contact with Lance Stroll after the Aston Martin driver's front-left tyre hit the FW46's rear-right to spin both cars around.
Franco, meanwhile, couldn't make it to Turn 2 after Nico Hulkenberg span out of control at the opening corner, hitting Esteban Ocon, who in turn collided with our No43, ending the Argentinian's race in the gravel.
With Alex now the only Williams Racing car in the Grand Prix, the pit wall checked on his status during the resulting Safety Car, but decided not to pit him after seeing no obvious damage or puncture.
After keeping pace with the cars ahead but unable to overtake in a slow-burn Sunday, Alex's race turned upside down when multiple punctures triggered a second Safety Car on Lap 35.
Choosing to switch to softs from mediums left Albono with 22 laps of running to fight forwards while trying to eke out all the life from his fresh Pirelli rubber.
It initially worked, and Alex gained two positions on the restart to sit in P11, but another incident triggered the Safety Car's third outing before he could push for more.
The final restart had Alex battling by Kevin Magnussen for P10, which morphed into P9 after P2-placed Lando Norris served a 10-second stop-go penalty.
Unfortunately for Alex, his tyres' grip started to suffer, and he was powerless to stop a series of overtakes before a last-lap pit stop that demoted him to P15 by the chequered flag.
"Sorry, Alex," said James Vowles as the sole Williams Racing car crossed the line, "It was a little bit of a gamble to try and get us up there.
"Well done. It'll come. One more race."
"It was a tricky day," Alex summarised after stepping out of the car following the race.
"We were a little bit in no man’s land most of the race being towards the back and we were struggling with pace.
"The Safety Car made it interesting, and we took that opportunity to put on Softs.
"It was an optimistic gamble, but one worth taking because of the pace we had.
"We knew that on every Safety Car restart the first lap was the only one I could overtake and so we made up some positions and we were in the points for a bit, but we were relying on another Safety Car which didn’t come so then the tyres started degrading quite badly.
"For ten laps we had some good pace but ultimately we were not quick enough."
Franco had this to say after his Lap 1 exit: "I’m disappointed to be taken out in Turn 1 after trying to leave a big enough gap on my inside.
"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and there was nothing I could do to avoid it.
"It’s quite frustrating as the race had plenty of opportunities to make things happen that could’ve put us in the fight.
"At the end of the day, it’s part of racing unfortunately.
"We’ll need to assess the damage from today.
"It’s important to have a clean weekend in Abu Dhabi and aim to finish the season on a high."
Williams Racing's Sporting Director Sven Smeets said that Qatar was, "A difficult evening for the team today.
"At the race start we immediately lost Franco as he was hit by Ocon who in turn was hit by Hulkenberg.
"There was nothing Franco could do other than to retire in Lap 1.
"After a few laps it was clear that with Alex we had to change our strategy and decided to run as long as possible.
"When the Safety Car came out because some cars were having punctures, we decided to put Alex on the Soft tyre and not onto the Hard.
"We knew it was a gamble but at one point we were running up in 9th place.
"Unfortunately, our decision didn’t pay off today and Alex had to make another stop just before the end.
"A tough day for the team again but we are going to Abu Dhabi to fight for points in the last race of the season."
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