Alex Albon calls for internal Williams review after "frustrating" British GP qualifying

Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz were both eliminated in Q2 in Silverstone

Williams drivers Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz both faced Q2 eliminations in qualifying for the British Grand Prix. The results have led the former to call for an internal review of the session to try and understand what cost them their Saturday.

The Grove outfit was already facing reliability issues ahead of the race weekend after suffering from a double-DNF in Austria last week.

"Yes, I think internally we need to review what went on there, because we put on a set of tyres when Franco [Colapinto] crashed, and then we went out on the track when it was quite clear it was going to be a red flag, so, basically we immediately wasted a set in qualifying," the Thai-British driver explained to Motorsport.com and other media.

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"We went into Q2 Run one on a used set of tyres. Until this point, we were looking good, feeling good, and I actually did a pretty good lap in Q2 Run one, considering the used tyres. Then we go into Q2 Run two and try to go out at the very front of the pack, where Max is – and Max’s out lap is about 15–20 seconds slower than ours – so we did Q2 Run two on our final new set, basically not even close to being ready.

"Q2 was obviously compromised, let’s say that. We need to review what we did. We generally do go on the early side in quali – we like to – but today was too much. We need to understand why we like to go so early all the time."

He added, "I mean, we’ve been quick all weekend. We’re quick in Q1, we’re quick in Q2 Run one – and then it’s like, yeah, P14. So frustrating. Very frustrating."

Albon's team-mate Sainz has noticed that other teams have started to improve around them.

Alex Albon, Williams

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

"I think we've been the whole weekend just on that time gap between P9 to P14 in the middle of the midfield, and you obviously don't know when it comes to Q2 and putting everyone together, how we would perform," the Spanish driver told the media.

"In the end, honestly, my lap felt really clean. It is true that we've been dedicating a lot of the weekend to a bit of set-up experimentation and trying to get rid of our reliability issues, so maybe it hasn't been the best ever build-up to quali.

"But the lap felt strong there at the end. I think we are in that phase of the season where, even on a track where we were expecting to be competitive, the others have improved just a bit too much for us, and we just are always like this to get into Q3, and we start to need a bit of a lift in performance."

Despite Sainz and Albon finishing qualifying in 11th and 14th, respectively, they will each move up one grid place after Oliver Bearman's 10-place grid penalty is taken into account.