Williams weren’t “doing anything special” to get both cars in top five – Albon

Williams’ pace in practice for the British Grand Prix surprised Alexander Albon, who said the car was a handful in the strong winds at the track.

Albon was third-quickest in both practice sessions at Silverstone on Friday. However he admitted the conditions made it hard to judge where the team had made progress.

“Truthfully, if you talk about balance, every corner is different here because the wind is hitting the car in different ways,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “So you get what you call a very ‘disconnected’ car.

“There’s a lot you can do, but also it’s very hard, for example turn three is oversteer and turn four is understeer. You can’t really attack those corners and do set-up work because they’re the same corner speeds and you’re just getting a headwind and then tailwind. So it’s all about compromise around this circuit.”

He said the team have “got to keep grounded” because their performance is “also a bit surprising for us.”

Williams introduced a significant upgrade on Albon’s car two races ago and gave his team mate Logan Sargeant the new parts at the last race in Austria. Both drivers ended Friday in the top five.

“I’d be lying to say it’s not surprising,” Albon admitted, adding, “obviously we’re not doing anything special.”

Albon suspects some of the potential of the team’s upgrade was masked by the nature of the circuits they have run them on so far.

“It’s strange because, without sounding too pessimistic, it doesn’t feel great out there for us but it clearly must feel worse for the others,” he said. “The wind out there is a real pain, it really separates the balance of the car. But for us, we seem to be coping with it much better than everyone else.

“We’ve also had this upgrade package which what we’ve seen has been a bit better for high-speed corners than low speed. Canada and Austria were kind of low-speed tracks so hopefully, maybe, it’s partly due to that.

“But it’s a bit of a question mark. Honestly our long-run pace was also strong considering we’re on the hard tyre. We’ve got to keep grounded and just focus on ourselves. But it’s a bit of a strange one to finish laps and see yourself in the top three.”

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