Alex Albon says he intends to make up lost time on Saturday following a Friday that saw him miss nearly the entirety of second practice for the Singapore Grand Prix.
Albon finished only five laps in FP2 after spending FP1 on test laps before contacting Williams’ pit wall to report that his power unit was cutting out. He was compelled to return to pit lane where the techs quickly found the problem.
“We think the issue is battery related,” the Williams driver said. “I started my lap and it felt okay but then I just started to lose deployment as I went on the straight.
“I think we already know the problem.”
Albon missed the remainder of the session because the issue could not be fixed promptly. The good news is that the Williams car ought to be running properly again by Saturday.
“It shouldn’t be too long to fix,” Albon said.
In the team’s press release following the session, Dave Robson, head of vehicle performance at Williams, provided more information regarding the circumstance.
“We opted to do some testing with Alex in FP1, expecting to complete the race preparation during FP2,” he explained. “Unfortunately an issue within the ERS system of the PU meant that we had to end his FP2 after just a couple of laps on the hard tyre.
“We’ll fit a different module to Alex’s car overnight and look to make up for lost time during FP3.”
According to Albon, this was not the kind of racetrack where you wanted to, if at all possible, miss out on any track time.
“Around here you want the mileage because it’s such a confidence building circuit,” Albon said, optimistic Saturday will turn out better. “Aside from the issue, the car hasn’t felt too bad.
“I don’t believe we’ll suffer from any penalties, but we’ll have a proper look tonight.
“With the temperature of the car here this weekend and the lack of running time, we’ll have to do a little bit of guess work tomorrow, but it should be fine going into FP3 tomorrow.”
Albon’s teammate Logan Sargeant, enjoyed a generally easy day, which was greatly appreciated by the rookie on his maiden trip to the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
“Logan had a more successful day and completed his plan without any issues,” confirmed Robson. “He got some good experience of this tricky circuit under his belt.
“He was able to get a good sense of how to trade low and high fuel performance at this track.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do to improve the car, but we know what we are looking for.
“We’ll certainly be able to make some progress.”
Sargeant said: “FP2 was much better than FP1 so that was a good step forward.
“I was on a semi-decent lap on the Soft tyre but made a mistake in the last corner which cost us the lap time.
“Still a lot of good learning from today,” he continued. “We have a couple of different bits coming tomorrow that should help me out.
“As a team, we knew it was going to be a tough weekend feeling those limitations that we haven’t really experienced in the last couple of races.
“We just need to try and find a way around them the best we can.”
