2024 Austrian Grand Prix Sprint Race & Qualifying

Sven Smeets, Sporting Director: With Alex starting from the last row for the Sprint Race and being unhappy with the car set-up, we decided to make some changes resulting in a pitlane start. This has allowed us to gather valuable insights which will help us for the Grand Prix tomorrow. For Qualifying, the wind and the temperature picked up and we saw both drivers struggling more with the balance of the car. Alex missed out on Q2 by less than a tenth, with the midfield being so tight. Tomorrow we will see how the race evolves but with the high forecasted temperatures, it will become a big tyre battle in the midfield.

Alex Albon: When you start a Sprint weekend not being in a happy place with the car, you’ve got more catching up to do. We’ve been making bigger changes than we normally do all weekend and I think we’ve done a decent job for the most part, however I’m just struggling a lot with balance, especially in Turn 3 and 4. My lap for Q2, Lewis let me pass like normal, but I think I got some dirty air and locked up, so this was the difference with it being such fine margins for us. Either way, I’m happy with how we turned the car around, however we need to understand where the balance is going ahead of the tomorrow.

Logan Sargeant: It’s been a frustrating day. We’ve had such a swing of balance from session to session and we are so reliant on the right conditions to be quick. The temperature increased massively today, and we tend to struggle when that happens. I was happy with my qualifying lap this afternoon and I pretty much got the most out of it, but the ultimate result is disappointing and starting from near the back is never fun. The positive is that we learnt a lot in the Sprint Race today that we can apply tomorrow, also making a change following the Sprint that will hopefully help for the race and move us in the right direction.