22/03/2025
NEWS STORY
James Vowles, Team Principal: Sprint weekends are always challenging and this one is no different.
"We didn't have the car in the right place this morning and in the Sprint Race, we suffered more graining than near enough all the cars around us and had to try our best to manage it. We made some quite significant set-up changes for both drivers for Qualifying and for the Grand Prix, which should put us in a better position. As we said before the season started, the field is so tight, and just milliseconds really makes a difference between making it to Q3 or being on the outside of it. With Carlos, we can absolutely see improvement; in reality it was just one corner that differentiated him from Alex, but it bodes well for the race tomorrow.
Alex Albon: It's so close out there! I think we had the whole of the midfield spread by a tenth by our calculations. Q1 and Q2 were honestly almost the same because the margins were so close. I'm very happy to have executed well and get clean laps on the board. The wind was gusting quite a lot during that session and it's easy to make mistakes in those conditions, but I think I was consistent out there. It's difficult to do that on a tricky track like this, it's easy to overdrive and the tyres are so sensitive. It felt like I was in a good rhythm. We made some set-up changes today but there's still a lot to do. I'm happy to get through but it's going to be a tough race tomorrow.
Carlos Sainz: Still struggling with the same issues during Qualifying. As soon as I begin to push, I lose the feeling with the car in certain corners and struggle to improve the total lap time. I'm trying to make the most of it, but the reality is that I am unfortunately not there yet, especially in the last sector. I know I'll end up getting there with the car, it's now a matter of shortening the process as much as possible. Regarding tomorrow's race, we've made some big set-up changes to the car and hopefully we will be in better shape than this morning. Graining will again be key, so let's see what we can achieve.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Shanghai here.