22/10/2023
NEWS STORY
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: We had a much stronger day today.
"In contrast to yesterday, and perhaps helped by the mandated use of the Medium compound this morning, we were on the right side of the fine margins and Alex was able to progress through to the final stage of Sprint Shootout. Logan found it a little more difficult and couldn't get the 2nd lap on the tyres in Sprint Shootout 1.
In the Sprint race, Alex was able to race hard and still manage his degradation well. It was a shame that he lost a couple of places on the opening lap as it meant we couldn't quite score a point once George's penalty was applied.
The car performed well today, and we should be able to transform that into a good race performance tomorrow. Given our starting position, achieving a strong result will be difficult but we'll be pushing hard to achieve everything possible.
Alex Albon: We went for it in the Sprint, as we were looking much stronger than yesterday, so we gave ourselves the biggest opportunity to score points. It's so tight out there and to just miss out is frustrating but at the same time, it was a good race and we can't discredit that. Obviously to finish P9, just outside of the points is what makes it frustrating. The tyres are interesting here and if I were to do it over, I would do things a bit differently, but this track can be difficult and my tyres started to deg, then came back at the end allowing us to push and try close the gap. We have race pace, so starting P18 tomorrow, hopefully we can fight the cars around us.
Logan Sargeant: It was always going to be difficult starting where we did. We're still quite disconnected from high to low speed and that's been a bit of a challenge. I struggled to be quick in the place I needed to be quick to have the chance for an overtake. I'm still in search for a bit more pace. The main takeaway is getting a taste of what the car is going to be like on a long run and which direction we need to try to move in. We'll see what we can take from today and try to get in a better position for tomorrow.