2024 Chinese Grand Prix - F1 Sprint Race and Qualifying

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: We used today’s Sprint race to understand the tyre behaviour over a race stint and were able to use this experience to make some setup changes to the cars ahead of the Qualifying session. The setup changes, and the move to the Soft tyre compound, helped our performance in Qualifying. Both drivers showed decent pace in Q1, and it was a shame that Logan had a spin on his final lap in Q1. Alex was able to get through Q1 and qualify in P14, which is a fair result for where the FW46 currently is. Hopefully, the setup changes will improve our race pace too and we can then race the cars starting ahead of us.

Alex Albon: It’s been a tricky weekend so far, so 14th was probably the best we could do today. Our car struggles with the long corners at this track, and the mix of high and low speed corners makes set-up difficult. We had to prioritise low speed corners, compromising stability in high speeds. The wind also affected the balance and made the car feel quite disconnected. Today has clarified what we need to work on going forward, and the team can be proud of changes we’ve made ahead of the session. I’m optimistic as we’ve got a good tyre allocation for the race, and winds should be lower. We can definitely fight from here tomorrow.

Logan Sargeant: Qualifying was frustrating as it was a good lap until the spin. The car was on edge in the high speed this afternoon especially over the bumps and changes in tarmac. Nonetheless, it could’ve been a much better session. We used the Sprint as a chance to get a good long run under our belts and from that made some minor changes ahead of Qualifying based on what we felt and what we want for tomorrow. So, we need to see how that plays out in the race. Realistically it’s not going to be easy, but we’ll give it our best go and see where that leaves us.