George Russell has admitted that he is surprised by how “relatively fast” Williams were throughout Friday Practice for 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Although Russell encountered issues across both practice sessions which left him “a bit off the pace” and 16th fastest come the end of FP2, he feels that Williams are moving forwards with their FW43B.
Discussing where the team stands in the pecking order this weekend, Russell said; “As a team we are in a good position, we have a lot of data to review but I’m sure that my engineers and I can figure it out.”
The 23 year-old also noted the surprise pace of his teammate, Nicholas Latifi who was ninth quickest in FP1, before finishing 12th fastest in FP2, commenting that it was “probably the best I have seen him drive.”
Latifi meanwhile was happy with his running throughout Friday Practice, saying; “For the most part we ran without hitches and we were able to get through the run plan quite smoothly.”
The 2019 F2 Vice-Champion also noted that he felt a better feeling about the car than he expected after a tough season-opener in Bahrain, although he was cautiously optimistic given that there is work still to do to improve his performance in the car.
Head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson backed up the positive comments of both drivers, pointing out that both Russell and Latifi had enjoyed rare “… trouble-free sessions and were generally happy with their cars.”
Robson also confirmed that having collected plenty of data and 109 laps between both drivers, there will be some “further changes” made to both cars overnight but the team should be confident of a strong Saturday.
Given the cooler conditions of Imola compared to Sakhir despite same tyre compounds in use for both races, Robson confirmed that both drivers spent part of their programmes looking at how to “optimise their performance” on the tyres.
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