Austrian GP: Frustrating Qualifying for Williams Racing


By Williams Racing
June 29 2025

Qualifying for the 2025 Austrian GP would turn out to be a very frustrating session with Alex Albon finishing in 12th while Carlos Sainz was well down the order in 19th. Both drivers would suffer with floor damage during their Q1 runs such that it impacted their performances. For Carlos he would also have brake issues which combined with the floor damage made the car undriveable. It was very much a session of various issues that cost both drivers performance. Even though both drivers have spoken of their good race pace it is going to be difficult to use this especially for Carlos starting so well back.

 
 Atlassian Williams Racing Austrian GP Qualifying Review
 
Sainz
 
Albon

Alex Albon:
"We collected some damage on the floor during Q1, and the mechanics did a fantastic job to tape up as much as we could to go back out. Our Q2 run on fresh tyres had to be aborted due to the red flag, and despite using old tyres on a damaged car, we still qualified P12 so I’m pretty happy with that. There were some glimpses of pace in Q1 but we couldn't replicate the same lap times while carrying damage. I’m still really happy with the execution of Q2 and, without damage, we had a car capable of reaching Q3. Tomorrow I hope there will be some good racing and we can try to have a good result; I’m optimistic we can go and get some points."

Sainz

Carlos Sainz:
"A frustrating Qualifying. We had a brake issue from the start of the session which was making the car pull massively to one side and I ended up picking up floor damage which made the car undriveable. Overall, we need to pull together as a team and review what’s causing this run of form in Qualifying and on the Soft tyre. For tomorrow, we seemed to have good race pace yesterday so I will give it all to recover and get into the points."

 

James Vowles Team Principal:
"We found floor damage on both Carlos and Alex's cars during the session. The kerbs here are aggressive and we need to use every millimetre of the track in order to be competitive in what is a very tight field, but that cost both drivers performance today. We will be able to repair that overnight and we'll come back tomorrow fighting. The race car on Friday was good and I still expect us to have a quick car come tomorrow, but we have a lot of ground to cover."

 
Albon
 
Sainz
 
Red Bull Ring, Austria   Lap Length: 4.326km
Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3
12 A Albon Williams Racing 1:05.143  1:05.205 -
19 C Sainz Williams Racing 1:05.582 - -
 
Albon
 

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