Sao Paulo Sprint DNF Thwarts Alex in Brazil
Alex Albon was denied a shot at a strong result at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix following a non-finish in the Sprint Race after a great Quali effort!
Interlagos once again produced another memorable event of Formula One action as scattered showers arrived just in time for Qualifying, before the Sprint and Grand Prix delivered up some great racing!
Alex put in a great Qualifying performance in the challenging conditions to reach Q2 and narrowly miss out on a Q3 spot with P11 for the Saturday Sao Paulo Sprint Race.
After a challenging start, Alex was running in P14 during the early stages of the much drier conditions company too Friday's qualifying.
Whilst closing in on a pack of drivers ahead, Alex appeared to run over some debris on the pit straight, forcing him to go straight on at Turn 1 and retire the car.
Starting from the back of the grid for the Grand Prix, Alex kept his nose clean in the opening stint where a Safety Car was deployed for a Lap-1 incident between Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen.
On the restart, more incidents ahead saw Alex move up to P16 - before gaining another position by Lap 12 to move up to P15.
Sadly Alex could not make any further in roads during the middle portion of the race.
A Virtual Safety Car was deployed on Lap 53 after Norris pulled to the side of the track with technical issues. This was upgraded to a full Safety Car period a lap later.
Alex was able to unlap himself and catch back up to the pack before the Lap 61 restart but would gain no more places before the chequered flag, finishing in P15 at the chequered flag.
Alex Albon, Williams Racing Driver #23:
“Our race was OK, but we got unlucky with the Safety Car, with everyone in front of us getting a free pit stop, ultimately compromising our whole race.
We did a good job and in terms of the race, I was happy with how I was driving, and it looked like we were optimising the race."
“I do think we may have made an error with our start tyre as everyone else was on the softs and mediums, but the Safety Car gave us an opportunity to immediately swap to a two-stop medium race.
It’s unfortunate but we’ll look forward to the next and last race of the season.”
The final race of the season will take place at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi next week on the 18-20 November to round out the 2022 season.