Five fast facts from the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix

It was a positive start to the 2023 season for Williams Racing in Bahrain, leaving with a point to our name thanks to Alex Albon's P10, with Logan Sargeant also enjoying an impressive debut outing.

Have a read through five fast facts from the weekend just gone.

It has been a while since we secured a top 10 finish at the opening round of a season. The sport was in its first season of new ownership, it was the last year that we raced in Malaysia and the first season of Drive to Survive wouldn’t air for another two years.

The 2017 opener took place at Melbourne’s Albert Park and Felipe Massa would cross the line in P6 behind the wheel of his FW40, a points-scoring feat that wouldn’t be matched until Alex's drive this past weekend.

Further still, with Logan's P12 taken into account, this is our best all-round first race of the season since 2016.

Logan’s solid Grand Prix debut has somewhat gone under the radar. The Floridian was just one-thousandth of a second away from securing a Q2 berth - after clocking an identical time to Lando Norris - and still qualified as the highest rookie.

LS2 made up four positions in the race, three of which came on a superb opening lap where he displayed no first-race hesitancy at all.

He’d end the race with the fourth-quickest lap of all drivers, a 1:36.037 set on the 42nd tour of the Bahrain International Circuit.

This season is Albono’s fourth competing at the pinnacle of motorsport and it has brought his best-ever start to a season.

Classified finishes of P14 and two P13s had kicked off his previous F1 campaigns, so it’s great to see him begin the year inside the top 10.

Our Thai racer made up five positions during the Grand Prix and like his teammate, three of these came on the opening lap.

Some exemplary tyre management whilst under pressure from behind also contributed to this great start to the year.

Last season’s FW44 was a monster in a straight line, with its slippery nature scoring points at both Spa-Francorchamps and Monza.

Well its successor, the FW45, is certainly a more complete package.

That said, it’s still a handy machine in a straight line. Logan was the quickest driver when passing the finish line, clocking 293.9 km/h.

Alex was also 1km/h quicker than the chasing Yuki Tsunoda through the speed trap which, when matched with our No23's exemplary racecraft, helped keep the AlphaTauri driver behind to bring home our first point.

It’s been a positive start to the season, which is a testament to all the work completed during the winter at our Grove headquarters.

Of course, there are still 22 races to go, with plenty more twists and turns to come, however, we’ve built ourselves a good foundation upon which to grow.

When put into context just how many grands prix there are this year, Alex will increase the 59 race starts he began the year on by just shy of 40%.

Similarly, if Logan starts at every race this season, he will automatically jump into the top half of our Grand Prix starters, placing 26th of 55.