Mexican GP: Encouraging FP3 for Williams Racing


By Andrew Hooper
October 29 2022

The final practice session for the 2022 Mexican GP would see the Williams Racing team come away with, at least one one side of the garage, an encouraging result. We would see Alex Albon finish the session in tenth but for Nicholas Latifi he would finish well down the times in 18th. Both drivers would only use the soft tyre in the session but early on both drivers would complete longer runs on this tyre. As for the prospects for qualifying for Nicholas it would seem to be the case that he will find it tough to get past Q1 but for Alex Q2 is looking very good with even a Q3 appearance a good possibility.

 
 Williams Racing Mexican GP Saturday Practice
 
Latifi
 

Team Summary:
The final Saturday practice would really be one to make up for the lost time due to the Pirelli tyre test on Friday. The Alfa Romeo's would be first out followed by both Aston Martin's all using the medium tyre. Bottas would set a 1m:21.462 as Hamilton and Leclerc came out on the soft tyre. More drivers would start to come out on a mix of soft and medium tyres. Bottas would improve with a 1m:21.041 with Hamilton now second. Both Aston Martin's had pitted as Perez came out also on the soft tyre. Leclerc was now quickest with a 1m:20.487 followed by Hamilton and Bottas, Schumacher, Ricciardo, and Magnussen. Next to come out were Russell and Norris seeing both McLaren's on the medium tyre.

Sainz was now quickest with a 1m:19.884 now with Perez second. But Russell would set a 1m:19.405 to be quickest from Sainz and Leclerc. Perez was fourth from Hamilton, Bottas, Schumacher, Norris, Zhou and Ricciardo tenth. The first of the Williams would come out joined by both Aston Martin's. The second Williams would also come out and with both on the soft tyre they would be eighth and 15th. At the front Verstappen would go quickest with a time of 1m:19.296 followed by Russell and Perez, all on the soft tyre. As they completed further laps the Williams pair were now seventh and 15th as we had Verstappen improve with a 1m:19.118. With twenty minutes remaining the order was Verstappen, Russell, Perez, Sainz, Leclerc, Hamilton, Alex, Schumacher, Alonso and Tsunoda tenth.

On a new set of soft tyres Russell would set a 1m:18.399 to be quickest from Hamilton also on new soft tyres. Except for Norris the track was now empty but we would see him joined by a Williams with just under twenty minutes remaining. Norris would improve to be fourth as the second Williams also came out. Bottas would improve to be fifth as we had the Williams now eighth and 13th after their soft tyre runs. Verstappen was still in third followed by Norris, Bottas, Perez, Sainz, Alex, Leclerc, and Zhou tenth. Tsunoda was now in seventh but this would become ninth as we now has Leclerc fourth followed by Perez, Sainz, and Norris seventh.

The session would come to an end with the order Russell from Hamilton, Verstappen, Leclerc, Perez, Sainz, Norris, Bottas, Tsunoda and Alex tenth. The drivers would again used the end of the session to complete practice starts. With the end of the session the prospects for qualifying was such that it was most likely that we would see one car making it through to Q2 with a Q3 appearance a good chance for Williams. Overall an impressive performance from at least one of the Williams cars which would be encouraging for the team.

Alex Albon:
With twenty minutes of the session Alex would come out also using the soft tyre. His first lap was a 1m:20.854 to be eighth. A 1m:20.483 would see Alex seventh as he pitted after completing six laps on the soft tyre. He would return on used soft tyres and after a further three laps would pit again. Alex would return on new soft tyres currently eighth and would set a 1m:19.917 to be seventh but would again drop to eighth. Alex would pit after a five lap run now in ninth. In the pits he would drop to tenth as the session came to a close. He would return to complete a practice start.

Nicholas Latifi:
Nicholas would start his first practice run out on the soft tyre. He would set a 1m:29.624 to be 15th. But his next lap was a 1m:21.528 to be 12th which was a far more competitive time. He would improve with a 1m:21.463 currently 15th. He would drop to 16th but was on a long run having completed eight laps on the soft tyre and with a 1m:21.358 he would move back up to 15th. He would briefly pitted after a ten lap run returning on used soft tyres. He would pit after a single lap. He would return on new soft tyres and would set a 1m:20.848 to now be 12th. This would become 13th as more times started to be set on the soft tyre. He would drop to be 16th as he pitted after a seven lap run. He was now 18th as the session ended returning to complete a practice start.

 
Albon
 
Cla Driver Chassis Time Gap
1  George Russell Mercedes 1'18.399  
2  Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1'18.543 0.144
3  Max Verstappen Red Bull 1'18.876 0.477
4  Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1'19.123 0.724
5  Sergio Perez Red Bull 1'19.241 0.842
6  Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1'19.301 0.902
7  Lando Norris McLaren 1'19.317 0.918
8  Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 1'19.390 0.991
9  Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 1'19.882 1.483
10  Alex Albon Williams 1'19.917 1.518
11  Esteban Ocon Alpine 1'19.960 1.561
12  Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo 1'20.019 1.620
13  Fernando Alonso Alpine 1'20.037 1.638
14  Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 1'20.139 1.740
15  Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 1'20.330 1.931
16  Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1'20.477 2.078
17  Mick Schumacher Haas 1'20.598 2.199
18  Nicholas Latifi Williams 1'20.848 2.449
19  Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 1'20.986 2.587
20  Kevin Magnussen Haas 1'21.271 2.872
 
Albon
 

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