Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon reflect on a mixed Friday in Jeddah. Sainz continues to adapt to his new team with promising signs in FP2. Albon looks to improve after a difficult soft tyre run and tyre management challenges.
The Friday in Jeddah provided two very different stories for the Williams drivers of Albon and Sainz. Both drivers showed promising signs for the race ahead; however, the team still have struggles to address.
Albon encouraged by the team’s tyre strength
Williams driver Alex Albon described a mixed day at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, feeling more comfortable during FP1 than FP2.
“Okay, yes, finding our feet a little bit. A bit happier with the car in FP1 than FP2. Fun around this track, very high speeds.”
Despite the thrill of the fast-paced street circuit, Albon admitted the final soft tyre run left room for improvement.
“Got a little bit scrappy on the last set of soft tyres, which we’ll need to improve and figure out what went wrong.”
“And I think we still need to work a little bit on our long run pace so a bit of fine tuning. It’s going to be close like always, so every little bit helps.”
However, according to Albon, the tyre conditions will be quite different during qualifying. The challenges of tyre management in the cooler night conditions kept the Thai driver optimistic that they would perform well.
“Yeah, it’s going to be tight.
“And tyres are always a talking point around a track like this, where the track’s quite cool or it cools off during the session, it gets harder and harder to get the tyres into a good operating window. We’re normally good at that, so let’s see.”
Sainz getting confidence in his new team
Albon’s new teammate for 2025, Carlos Sainz, appeared to be settling in better with the car. Continuing his adaptation process with promising results on Friday. The Spaniard finished FP1 in P7, improving to P5 for the second practice session.
“Yeah, just little steps with my driving, trying to adapt my driving style a bit to the car.”
“Little steps with setup, trying to get it into a better window that suits a bit my driving and the limitations that we have this year.”
Despite it being only Friday, Sainz has taken confidence from these results. Particularly his fifth-place finish in the last session of last night.
“You know, trying to make little steps, some things seem to work, others didn’t.”
“In the end, we did a decent lap on soft that put us quite high on the time sheets today. Let’s see if we can keep it up tomorrow. I hope so.”
Williams eyes a double Q3 appearance in Jeddah
The team have been making steady progress throughout the season. However, for Carlos Sainz, there is one milestone he would love to accomplish this weekend in Jeddah. A Q3 finish for the first time in 2025.
“I always target Q3 and points, this is the target for the team and for myself every weekend. So far, it’s been tough to get because we’ve had our difficulties with my adaptation process and things not quite going our way, but hopefully this weekend it’s a good step.”
The Spaniard is under pressure to perform over the past few races. However, Sainz remains adamant that he is still settling into Williams, which is a big jump from the Ferrari team he spent years at.
“You know I’m trying so many different things with my setup and my driving that for sure you see progress.”
“Because sometimes I try something but I go backwards, but that makes me then go forwards because I know which direction I don’t need to go.”
Sainz also emphasised that his driving style has needed to change to help him maximise the potential of the Williams car.
“I try little things with my driving style and with the switches with the car, that sometimes I go backwards and sometimes it helps me go forward.”
“So it’s that adaptation process, that time that I’m giving myself to understand all these things that I was warned it was going to take time — and it’s taking its time — but when I get it, I’ll be there.”
