Nicholas Latifi says damage to his car early on in F1 Mexico GP left him with no pace as he ended up a lap behind teammate Alexander Albon.
Overall, Williams did not have a great weekend in F1 Mexico GP where they were knocked out in Q1 and eventually couldn’t score despite Albon being close to doing so. His teammate Latifi was warned by the stewards due slow driving on formation lap.
He was caught out by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen but it didn’t matter as Latifi just did not have any pace in the car. Since everyone from seventh onward were lapped, the Canadian being lapped by the front-runner was no surprise to anyone.
But his lack of pace saw him drop back by two laps which included Albon lapping him too. Post-race, Latifi noted about damage to his car where he lost pace and the tyres just not working despite being on a fresh compound than others.
“We had some car damage from early on in the race which was confirmed by the team,” said Latifi. “At the beginning it didn’t seem too bad but as the race went on our pace seemed to deteriorate. We need to see what the damage specifically was but unfortunately, we had no pace.
“Even at the end, I was two or three seconds a lap slower on new Soft tyres compared to people on older Softs. Overall a very lonely day but we’ll look to bounce back in Brazil,” summed up Latifi, as teammate Albon felt good in the grand prix after an average Friday and Saturday. The Thai racer was close to the Top 10 but did not have enough in the end.
“Honestly, I’m really happy with today and it feels like our pace was relatively strong from where it was on Friday,” said Albon. “We had a tricky start so we dropped to 19th and despite a few retirements, we overtook everyone else, so I think it was a good race from us. It was a thermal race with the dirty air making the brakes hot and then the tyres hot, so we did well with our strategy to find the gaps of clean air.
“It was really close today and I’m feeling good with a lot of positives to take away. I think we’re getting better at solving the weaknesses in the car and at a circuit that doesn’t suit us we were able to set up the car and compete with those around us.”
Here’s how F1 Mexico GP panned out