In the round-up: Alexander Albon says the first part of the 2024 season has been tough for Williams as they haven’t brought any significant upgrades for their car.
In brief
2024 season “disappointing” so far – Albon
Albon described his season so far as “disappointing”, saying Williams’ lack of upgrades explains why they are only ninth in the championship.
“We’ve been on the back foot from the very beginning,” he told the official F1 channel. “We were late with our car and we’ve been paying the price the whole season so far. That’s about it.”
He is hopeful the team will begin to make progress with its car when the season resumes.
“We haven’t had many, if any, upgrades this season so far, so we’ve been on the back foot. Hopefully we’re pushing hard at the factory. Everyone’s working really hard. Of course, there’s a bit of a break right now, but time will tell.
“If we can get our first proper upgrade on the car at the beginning when we come back I think we can fight for points a bit more regularly.”
Alonso needs break after “six consecutive weekends”
Fernando Alonso was relieved to go into the summer break following a busy end to the first part of the season.
“The last six weeks were intense,” said the Aston Martin driver. “We have five races, we had the Goodwood Festival in the middle as well, so six consecutive weekends. Definitely, we need a break, especially the mechanics, everyone travelling, back to back races.
“It’s good to have a break now. It’s going to be a demanding second part of the year. Hopefully we can take some lessons from these last couple of races and come back stronger.”
Vandoorne and Ocon test at Spa
Stoffel Vandoorne and Esteban Ocon began two days of testing for Pirelli at Spa-Francorchamps.
Aston Martin’s reserve driver had his first outing in their AMR24 and logged 92 laps, setting a best time of 1’45.561. Ocon did 97 laps and got his best time down to 1’44.445. Vandoorne will continue to drive tomorrow while Ocon will hand over to Jack Doohan, who drove Alpine’s 2022 car in a separate test at the same track.
Softest tyres for trio of races
Pirelli will bring its softest range of tyres for the Italian, Azerbaijan and Singapore grands prix. This is the same allocation it brought to the events last year, though Baku’s round of the world championship will take place five months later than in 2023.
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