Colapinto and Albon left proud after best qualifying for Williams in 2024

Having secured Williams’ best starting positions of the season, Franco Colapinto and Alexander Albon sounded a positive note when assessing their chanced for the 51-lap Baku race.

Williams have looked quick all weekend but it remained to be seen where they might end up once everyone dialled up those engines.bHaving made his F1 debut last time out at Monza, Franco Colapinto impressed at yesterday’ qualifying session at Baku, delivering a very solid qualifying to secure ninth place on the grid.

Franco Colapinto noted: “To achieve Q3 in only my second Qualifying session in F1 is an amazing feeling for me and the team. I was not expecting to go into Q3 as I was just going session by session building up throughout.

“The car has been on point so far this weekend and I’ve been getting more comfortable with the car and learning a new track. I think we maximised almost every run we did today.

“We had a difficult start yesterday, but we’ve done a great job to turn it around. It was important to build my confidence up after the crash in FP1 especially at a street track. My mistake in FP1 meant I couldn’t do a long run which could hurt me tomorrow, but I think we can do our prep tonight and understand where I can improve.

“I’m proud of what we’re already achieving together as this is only the start with plenty of races left. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.

His team-mate Alexander Albon secured tenth place on the grid. However, he might have done better than that had he not been released late on in Q3 with the air box fan still attached to his car. He managed to stop and remove it himself, but couldn’t then make it to the line in time to start his last lap.

The Thai driver commented: “We’ve had three Q3’s in a row now which is a positive, and getting both cars through to Q3 is good. The car is performing well and the upgrade is working.

“Funnily enough, I’m actually not that happy with the car this weekend but that’s a positive sign as it shows there’s even more to come and we are still good on race pace. With the issue with the fan in Q3, these things happen.

“Nobody did it on purpose and the team will review what happened, but realistically I was only going to gain one, maybe two positions if everything went perfectly and we can still fight from the top ten tomorrow.”