F1 | Russell after the first free practice in Austria: “The pace seems ok”

Positive feelings for the Williams drivers at the end of the first two free practice sessions valid for the Austrian Grand Prix, ninth round of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. Despite the absence on the track in FP1 (Williams "gave" the car to Roy Nissany), George Russell promoted the behavior of the car with flying colors at Red Bull, rediscovering the good sensations of last week. Important indications, also shared by Nicholas Latifi, which give the team hope in view of today's qualifying.

“Sometimes it can be difficult to miss a practice session, but on this track there are only seven corners and we can also count on the data collected from last week's Grand Prix,” said Williams' Englishman. “This is therefore the best possible condition to hand over the wheel during FP1. We focused on the new compounds in view of Silverstone, even if the rain didn't allow us to do everything we had set out to do. As regards qualifying and the race, however, the pace seemed ok to me, but things often change quickly between free practice and qualifying. Tomorrow the goal will be to place as high as possible in qualifying. Q2 is the minimum result, but we'll see what the day brings."

Here are the words of Nicholas Latifi: “It was a very busy Friday in Austria and we tried to optimize the data collection on the new compounds as much as possible. The rain ruined our plans a bit, but despite this we managed to gather enough information, with different sensations between FP1 and FP2. The first went better than the second and we need to understand what kind of changes to make for tomorrow."

The young Roy Nissany is satisfied with the data collected in FP1: “Today was fantastic and overall it was a very productive two sessions not only for me, but also for the team. I love this track. I've raced with it several times and in many categories, but with the FW43B the sensations are totally different. We have collected a lot of data that the team will try to analyze in the next few hours. Personally I am very satisfied".