Dave Robson was full of praise for the engineering department at Williams Racing, with a balance change between final practice and Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix enabling Alexander Albon to make it all the way into Q3 for the first time in 2022.
Albon qualified ninth, which will become sixth on the grid once grid penalties are applied, his best performance in Qualifying since he joined Williams at the beginning of the season.
Nicholas Latifi had the potential to make it into Q2 but had a scruffy final lap in the second FW44 saw him eliminated in Q1, but penalties for other drivers will also see him gain places on the starting grid – the Canadian will start eleventh on the grid on Sunday.
Robson, the Head of Vehicle Performance at Williams, felt the team had gone the wrong way with set-up during final practice on Saturday morning, but they were able to turn around their fortunes in time for Qualifying, and were rewarded with Albon’s first Q3 appearance of the season.
“We had a decent day today and made some good progress with the car,” said Robson. “We made some aggressive changes overnight and these were a little bit too far in FP3, which led us to lose some of the pace we showed yesterday.
“However, some good engineering ahead of qualifying allowed us to find a good balance in qualifying. The tyres were tricky today in the cool conditions and we had to adapt our approach a little ahead of the delayed qualifying session, but this worked reasonably well, and we were able to get both cars into a decent window.
“Nicky lost some time at T1 of his final lap in Q1 but otherwise completed a good lap and was unfortunate not to progress to Q2. Alex did a very good job to progress to Q3 and once there we opted to lead the pack and use the free air. He left nothing on the table and it was right to go for a full attack lap.”
Robson admits the team are out of position to where they would normally be this weekend, and he is expecting their strategy to be more of a defensive one on Sunday.
“Both cars will inherit some grid positions once the penalties are applied and whilst this will help the race start, it does mean that we will need to play a fairly defensive strategy tomorrow,” he added.