REPORT: Sprint Qualifying complete in Austin

Williams Racing are reflecting on our best Sprint Qualifying result of the year so after Franco Colapinto made it through to SQ3 in his first taste of the format.

After a clean 60 minutes of running in the only Practice hour of the weekend, our duo jumped straight into the first competitive session.

On their opening Sprint Quali pushes, nothing could separate our No23 and No43 after they set identical lap times.

In his second push attempt, Alex Albon was up on his previous best but suffered a spin at the penultimate turn. He held it well to keep it out of trouble, but his afternoon was over and he’ll line up P18 for the 19 laps tomorrow.

Franco improved on his second lap to make it through to SQ2, where his one and only push in that phase sent him through in P8.

He took to the track early in SQ3 but spun at turn 12 on his opening push, making it back to the pits and out again with just seconds left on the clock to begin a lap.

A 1:34.406 placed him P10 in the final Sprint Quali classification, a solid way to end his first afternoon on track at Circuit of the Americas.

Franco was pleased with the day – though had his sights set firmly on improvement, saying, "it was a good Sprint Qualifying session, but I’m frustrated with myself as we were in a good place to beat the cars around us, but I made a mistake in Turn 1 which cost me.

"I tried to recover the time, but it wasn’t enough. Sadly, it wasn’t a clean lap in Q3, and it felt like we should’ve been in the top eight. I need to learn from this and continue to understand the limit of the tyres.

"However, after having only an hour to learn the track with this car, I made some good progress but felt like there was more there. We are starting close to the points tomorrow so let’s see what we can do."

Alex, meanwhile, was understandably disappointed with the day, saying "it was my mistake today; I should’ve been able to avoid that kerb, however we went for a bit of a stiffer car in Sprint Qualifying compared to FP1, so I just found it a bit too stiff from one session to the next.

"The car would’ve got us into SQ2 so I don’t think we need to make too many changes, it’s more about the tyres which are flat-spotted and can’t be used for the race tomorrow. We’ll have to see what we can do with the race run now as it feels slightly compromised."

Sporting Director Sven Smeets reflected, "there is always a lot of pressure on the Friday of a Sprint weekend. With only having one Free Practice you need to have the car in the right window straightaway.

"Both drivers were reasonably happy after Free Practice and confident to get into SQ2. Unfortunately, Alex made a mistake in his last push lap in SQ1 taking a bit too much kerb and could not avoid spinning. Franco passed into SQ2 with a good lap and went through into SQ3 with his only push lap.

"In SQ3 he made a mistake and had to settle for P10 in the end. A great performance at a new track with only one Free Practice session. We have one car in a good position to fight for points and with the other one we will focus on fine tuning the setup for Qualifying and the race on Sunday."