Nicholas Latifi: “I’m extremely happy to hold on and get my first points of the season”

Nicholas Latifi felt his ninth place finish in Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix was a ‘nice morale boost’ both for him and his team as he scored his first points of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season amid tricky weather conditions at the Suzuka International Racing Course.

The Williams Racing driver was one of two drivers – the other being Sebastian Vettel – to pit immediately at the end of the safety car period to switch from the full wet tyre to the intermediate compound, and he gained many positions on track as a result of this.

He may have lost a place to the recovering George Russell and Fernando Alonso late in the day, but he was comfortably able to maintain a gap to Lando Norris behind him to finish ninth and score two points.

“The beginning was quite tricky with the red flag and the delays,” said Latifi.  “We made the right decision to pit straight away for the Inters which was critical in jumping the cars ahead of us.

“I struggled at the end with the front tyres but I’m extremely happy to hold on and get my first points of the season. Overall, I’m really happy for the team and it’s a nice morale boost.”

Conditions ‘the worst I’ve ever experienced in my career so far’ – Alexander Albon

Team-mate Alexander Albon retired from the race not long after the initial start as light contact with Kevin Magnussen damaged his radiator and forced him to pull to the side of the road.

Albon admitted conditions were not very good when the race got underway, with visibility very limited due to the spray, while there was also a lot of aquaplaning as the intermediate tyres struggled.

The Thai driver said the conditions were perhaps the worst he has experienced in his life, but despite this, he felt they could have offered an opportunity to score points had he not been forced to retire.

“It’s definitely a shame as I felt like today was a chance to maybe score some points,” said Albon.  “I actually had a very good start and was really pleased with it but then with the visibility being so poor, I couldn’t see the car next to me; I couldn’t even see the track.

“I had a light touch with Kevin [Magnussen] but where we hit it touched the radiator, we lost water pressure and it was leaking, so we had to stop the car.

“It was extremely dangerous out there and so bad in terms of visibility, in fact it’s the worst I’ve ever experienced in my career so far. We are driving over 200kph in that weather and, whatever you are seeing on external or onboard cameras, it’s a hundred times worse from the cockpit.”

Alexander Albon was forced to retire on lap one with car damage – Credit: Williams Racing