23/07/2023
NEWS STORY
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Today was exciting and both drivers were able to mount a very strong recovery from yesterday. Both followed aggressive strategies that allowed us to be on the attack and whilst it made for a difficult final stint, both dealt with it very well and showed good pace whilst also managing their tyres.
Although we didn't score any points, Alex finishing in 11th place was a very strong result at a circuit that we expected wasn't ideally suited to FW45. We have held on to 7th place in the Championship and collected another 11th place finish in the process.
It was a shame that Logan didn't finish the race, but with a spin a few laps before the end, we opted to retire the car rather than risk further damage. Until that point, he was having another strong day and he can continue his good form into Spa.
We now head to Spa for the final race before the summer shutdown. It is another sprint event, which will be very interesting given the weather and general nature of Spa. The car will be in quite a different configuration than it was this weekend and we hope that at as a result it will work well in Belgium.
The strong result today was due to some excellent teamwork at the track and in the factory. We put together a good strategy and although it asked a lot of the drivers, they delivered strongly.
Alex Albon: P11 is quite a surprising result, it was quite a defensive race which we like to do. We got track position and we were okay; we came into this circuit knowing it wouldn't suit us and we qualified where the pace of the car was. Clean air is so important around here; even though I pitted early, once I had clean air, I had a lot of laps to bed the tyre in slowly so once I came out and undercut the other cars, I had some grip left and could manage them behind me. We've highlighted the areas our car struggles with by coming here, so when the car doesn't feel great, it's still raceable. To finish P11 and almost make Q2 yesterday, it's a very good sign, so if we can fix these issues, then we'll be in a good place across various circuits.
Logan Sargeant: Honestly, I was pretty happy with how the race was going. I think we got a little bit unlucky with strategy; we had a slow first pitstop which cost us quite a lot, but all in all the pace was pretty good considering it's a track which should have been quite bad for us. For Alex to be knocking on the door of points should give us a nice appetite for Spa, where we should be really strong.
Check out our Sunday gallery from the Hungaroring here.