Carlos Sainz: I hope we will continue to gain speed!

      During a Spa training session, Williams driver Carlos Sainz experienced fuel system problems, causing him to miss at least half of the session. Since the Belgian weekend program includes a sprint, this training was the only one, and it could have been a serious issue, but it did not prevent the Spanish driver from performing quite well in Friday's qualifying.

      He posted the 6th fastest time and finished ahead of his teammate Alex Albon, who was eliminated after the first part of the sprint qualifying due to technical issues with his car.

      Carlos Sainz (6th): "I am satisfied with today's result. Together with the team, we managed to turn the situation around since I missed half the training. We're making things more difficult for ourselves because there was an engine-related problem.

      At the same time, the session was important because it was my first time working on the Spa track driving a Williams car, and there was very little time to prepare for today’s qualifying. It’s good that during the sprint qualifying itself I managed to do a few quite decent laps.

      Additionally, this weekend, the team has introduced a number of new components, and to set up the car properly, I still need to fully understand how they work on the car. Overall, of course, it’s easier to show the pace we are capable of when everything goes according to plan. I hope we can keep increasing our speed tomorrow!"

      Alex Albon (16th): "We encountered a problem, and we thought we had fixed it after the training, but during the sprint qualifying, we lost a lot of time on the straights. In general, we will need to take some different actions to understand the car better.

      However, it seems that on this track our car is capable of good speed, so I am quite optimistic about the main events of the weekend."