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Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto were left to rue another challenging weekend for Williams at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, with Albon acknowledging that the team are having a “terrible, terrible time of it” recently as they again walked away with no points.
Saturday night’s race had initially started in promising style for Albon as the Thai driver made gains from his P17 grid slot, putting him in the battle for points following the first round of pit stops.
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But that charge came to a halt when he was forced to retire the car on Lap 25 of 50 owing to a suspected power unit issue, continuing a tough run of weekends for the Williams squad who have failed to score a point – as well as facing several heavy crashes – across the past three events.
“It’s frustrating,” Albon conceded after his early exit from the race. “I feel like we’ve had a terrible, terrible time of it as of late. It’s just frustrating. I was excited about the race, I felt like [we could score] great points hopefully.
“[I thought we could] repay the team – especially the mechanics and everyone at the factory – for all the hard work we’ve been going through over the last few weeks, and it would have been great to repay them, but it wasn’t meant to be. Another one to add to the list, so hopefully we can bounce back stronger in Qatar.”
Despite the disappointing outcome to his Grand Prix, Albon was left encouraged by the performance of his FW46 up until that point.
“I was pretty comfortable,” he explained. “I had to let Nico [Hulkenberg] past but I was happy with my pace. I felt like I could do more, to be honest.
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“I was kind of – not cruising, [that] would be the wrong word – but I was a little bit and had a strong pace advantage to the cars around me. We were fighting through the field, we made a lot of positions up but, yeah, anyway.”
Colapinto, meanwhile, put in a decent recovery drive after starting from the pit lane following his heavy crash during Friday’s qualifying, with the team having worked hard to repair his car in time for the race. However, the Argentinian could not reach the points and crossed the line in 14th place.
“It was a tough race,” said Colapinto. “A lot of dirty air, the tyres were opening a lot, the fronts were really difficult to manage, a lot of graining and the strategy was tricky as well.
“I think [I] lost a lot of time on the first stint, then I think we did a good job, the pace was okay in the other two [stints]. It was tough [in] the dirty air, we were just hurting the tyres so, so much [that it] then was difficult to manage.
“But I think overall after a tough day yesterday, today was decent. [We] need to keep working to understand how to be stronger in Qatar and Abu Dhabi and move forward.”
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Asked how he was feeling himself after the 50G impact of his qualifying crash, the 21-year-old responded: “It was hard, really hard. But luckily these cars now are really, really safe, and after some rest last night I was good.
“The car wasn’t so good, but the guys in the garage did an amazing job to put it back in one piece. They almost didn’t sleep last night, and it’s for them why I race today.
“They deserve a better result, unfortunately it was a tough day for us I think today, but we are going to bounce back stronger in Qatar and try and score some points for them [because] they really deserve it.”
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