REPORT: Intense Saturday at Interlagos

Atlassian Williams Racing are reflecting on a mixed Saturday after a dramatic end to a hectic Sprint race and a tough qualifying session to round out the day.

The Sprint was the first order of the day, and with Alex Albon starting P12 and Carlos Sainz due to line up at the back, the decision was made to make setup tweaks to the No.55 car – beginning the 24-lap dash from the pit lane.

Morning rain meant treacherous conditions off the usual racing line, but our duo made it safely through the opening lap.

However, on Lap 6, there was drama through the Senna Esses as Oscar Piastri, Nico Hulkenberg and Franco Colapinto had almost identical spins into the barriers within seconds of each other.

As a result, the red flag was shown before racing resumed with a rolling start 20 minutes later.

Soft tyre struggles throughout the field meant the pace of those running the red-walled rubber fell away in the closing stages. Among them was Alex, who found himself trading places with home favourite Gabriel Bortoleto in the final laps.

On the penultimate tour, the Sauber driver looked to send a move up the inside of Turn 1 on our Thai racer but suffered a heavy hit into the barriers – thankfully, he was unharmed. Alex’s FW47 was hammered by debris in the incident, forcing him to limp home and finish P17.

Carlos’s Sprint saw him stuck behind the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda for the duration, though he gained positions thanks to incidents ahead, finishing P15.

With data gathered from the Sprint, the Williams pair went into qualifying knowing there would be little to separate the midfield.

Both drivers made it through Q1, with Alex able to abort his final push and progress in P11 thanks to an initial time of 1:10.115, while Carlos improved with a 1:10.184 on his last attempt to finish the opening phase in P13.

The pair were left scratching their heads in Q2, as neither could improve on their final attempts. Alex’s best lap of 1:10.053 placed him P12 on the grid, while Carlos will start P15 after setting a 1:10.472.

James Vowles: "The long and short of it is we're not competitive enough here. We've seen that across two days and two qualifying sessions. It's a very close field but we're not at the sharp end of it.

"We've tried quite a few different setup directions between the two cars, but I don't think we found the sweet spot yet.

"Irrespective, this is a race that can throw up surprises, so we need to keep our noses clean on the opening laps and take every opportunity that comes towards us."

Alex Albon: "Overall, the Sprint wasn’t great for us. We were not quite able to get points, so I didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. Unfortunately, with the incident at the end, I picked up some damage from debris, and we had to work quickly to turn the car around before qualifying.

"We had to switch from our new floor back to an older one, which I think cost us some performance. I’m really glad Gabi [Bortoleto] is okay though; that was a big crash.

"Qualifying was then quite tricky. We made some good changes and I think we did make a step forward with the car, but you can't really see it. We still don’t have the balance we’re looking for, and that’s causing us to hurt the tyres.

"We saw the same thing in the Sprint, so we need to look at that and understand our race pace better because it’s so tight in the midfield right now."

Carlos Sainz: "It’s been tough to find performance in the car this weekend. We struggle in these types of longer corners and, even though we’ve been playing around a lot with setup, I haven’t managed to find something I’m happy with and I’ve not been comfortable in the car.

"Tomorrow the pecking order is quite out of sync, so we’ll see what we can do with strategy to try to get into the points. I’m always more optimistic for Sunday, so we’ll keep fighting until the end."