Friday was a day of mixed returns for Williams at the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix. Franco Colapinto finished FP1 in 11th position, and completed the extended FP2 — and a tire test program for Pirelli — without any incidents.
It was a different story for Alexander Albon.
A hard crash between Albon and Oliver Bearman brought FP1 to an early end for both drivers, and the damage Albon’s FW46 sustained in the shunt prevented the veteran driver from participating in FP2. As a result, the team will be looking to make up for lost time in Saturday’s final practice session ahead of qualifying.
A day of mixed feelings,” began Williams Sporting Director Sven Smoots in the team’s post-seassion report. “We completed the program with Franco in FP1 gathering valuable information for tomorrow and Sunday. Unfortunately, Alex caught a slow-moving Bearman in an unfortunate spot on the track with limited options to avoid a collision.
“Extensive repairs were needed, and the team gave it their all to repair the car in time for FP2. We came very close but needed a few more minutes to give Alex a couple of laps at the end of FP2. Franco completed the Pirelli tire test program in FP2 without any problems. Tomorrow we will be focussing on giving Alex as much run time as we can while with Franco, we will be looking to gather vital data for final set-up decisions.”
The incident between Albon and Bearman was referred to race officials for further investigation, but no further action was taken.
You can see the incident here:
“It was a frustrating day today. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow but I’m hoping we’re not too far behind given FP2 was a Pirelli test, so hopefully the lack of track time today is less compromising,” said Albon. “Regarding the incident, I think Ollie got told that I was behind him too late and tried his best to speed up into the high-speed corners, but I just caught him at the worst part of the track and there wasn’t much I could’ve done to avoid it. We’ll put it behind us as a racing incident and hopefully turn things around for tomorrow.”
On the other side of the garage, Colapinto called Friday a “good first day” after his two practice sessions.
“It’s been a good first day here in Mexico. We made some changes between sessions however the car felt a little bit less alive, so we’ll look at that tonight,” said Colapinto. “Overall, the key today was to get used to the track and get up to speed which went well. We’re going in the right direction, so we’ll keep building tomorrow.”
