2023 Qatar Grand Prix

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Despite the evening race, it was hot and humid, nonetheless. Racing in these conditions at this high-speed circuit is very physical for the drivers and led to them both ending the race dehydrated.

Given the build-up to the race and our performance in the Sprint Race yesterday, we were probably expecting a little bit more today, but we were never quite able to find Alex the free air he needed to make really good progress. Being held-up by Hulkenberg early in the race after he started in the wrong grid position did not help us in this regard.

Logan has driven very well all weekend and shown good pace, especially in the tricky conditions we had on Friday. It was a shame that we didn’t get to see his full pace today after he was forced to retire.

We now look forward to the triple header, which begins in Austin before we move onto Mexico and Brazil.

Alex Albon: Firstly, I’m glad Logan is okay as it’s never easy to retire from a race. I think this race goes down as one of the toughest of the year, as I suffered with heat exposure myself. Our pace was pretty strong, but I need to review what happened, as we were in what felt like a good position, but we ended up falling out of the points. We also struggled with a bit of an overheating cockpit, so we’ll also need to review this. The gap to our competitors is closing, so it’s a tough weekend to walk away from but we’ll review the data and see what happened.

Logan Sargeant: The main thing is Alex and I are both ok. I’ve been feeling unwell all week which didn’t help with the dehydration in this heat. The last thing I wanted to do was retire the car, but I had to put my health first. Sorry to the team for not being able to reach the finish line. They’ve done an incredible job all weekend in these intense conditions. I’ll be taking next week to fully recover and then bounce back in Austin which I’m really looking forward to.