Williams’ Dave Robson: “the pace of the FW44 in race trim was good today”

Williams Racing’s Head of Vehicle Performance Dave Robson was pleased with the racing performance of the FW44 at the eventful and retirement-filled Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Alex Albon finished twelfth after starting seventeenth and Nicholas Latifi finished fifteenth from eighteenth. 

Robson said that the lap nine virtual safety car hindered Albon strategically, though they made their best effort to break into the points with a second stop on lap twenty-nine. He added that their data showed an irregularity at the end of the race that prompted the team to stop Albon’s car right after the race’s completion. 

“The race in Baku is usually an exciting one and this edition followed that form. Alex raced very well and the pace of the FW44 in race trim was good today. The timing of the VSC which allowed Bottas to stay ahead was frustrating, but that is racing; at least we forced the situation by stopping Alex for a 2nd time and played an aggressive hand in pursuit of a better result. At the end of the race, we stopped the car immediately as we could see something on the data that we were not comfortable with.”

Robson praised Latifi’s one-stop effort, as the two penalties he received on Sunday made for a “tough” race for the Canadian driver. The first ten-second stop and go penalty was applied after a team member touched his car after the allowed time period, and a five-second time penalty was given to him during the race for ignoring blue flags.

“Nicholas had a tough day, with an immediate penalty for a minor breach of the regulations on the grid. The penalty is mandated by the regulations and we were at fault, albeit only momentarily so we need to review our process and ensure that it doesn’t happen in the future. From there, Nicholas was always going to have a tough race, but he successfully completed a 1-stop race, which was not easy in today’s hot conditions.”

Though the result in Baku left something to be desired for the team, Robson is excited to move onto the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend and build off of what they’ve learned. 

“We will take the learning from this weekend on to Canada. We are looking forward to returning to Montreal and competing on another exciting circuit using the softest of the Pirelli compounds.”