Alex Albon's Barcelona F1 struggles "a head scratcher" with "strange car"

Williams Formula 1 driver Alex Albon has been left mystified by a “head scratcher” of a weekend in Barcelona that has left him struggling for pace with a “strange car.”

The team anticipated that the faster corners of the Spanish venue would be more challenging for the FW48 after scoring points in Miami, Montreal and Monaco.

However, in addition to an overall performance deficit, Albon was left frustrated by a lack of balance and an unpredictable car.

He could only manage P18 in qualifying, while his team mate Carlos Sainz just made it through to Q2, having used up all his soft tyres doing so. He will start his home race in P16.

“Honestly, it's a big head scratcher to me,” said Albon when asked by Crash.net about his difficult session. “We knew we'd struggle this weekend, but it’s just finding balance. It can be weight, you can be heavy, you can be down on downforce – but balance, you normally can find something.

“To be honest with you, I go into every corner, and I don't know what the car's going to do, so it’s hard to really build on the rhythm when you have that. Some laps, you go into a corner, you have oversteer, and the next lap, you have a lot of understeer.

“You're kind of a little bit stuck with the car. We'll have a look at it. I think we've been fighting with the car all weekend. I think by FP3 we realised, honestly, let's just not change it, and just accept that that's what the car is going to do, and just try to drive around it. But yeah, frustrating.”

Albon suggested that his team-mate was in a slightly better position: “I think Carlos is a lot happier with it than I am. Not to say that he's having fun out there.

“It's a strange car at the minute. We're moving things around. I would say I was surprised how tough it's been this weekend. I was coming from Miami, Canada, and Monaco, I thought it was looking a bit better.”

Sainz, meanwhile, conceded that the venue doesn’t suit the car.

"We used all of our bullets in Q1,” said the Spaniard. “That was the target for us as a team to get out of Q1 and try and beat the Haas. This shows a bit where we are fighting this weekend on this tricky track for us, and tricky conditions for us.

“Then did a solid lap in Q1 to make it through, but then no tyres left in Q2, and we were just testing some things to see if I could try something.”