Nicholas Latifi can’t keep up at Williams even with his new team-mates Alexander Albon – problems with the balance of the car
Nicholas Latifi is also struggling to keep up with his new teammates Alexander Albon in the 2022 Formula 1 season. While the Thai has already scored three points for the Williams team, Latifi has so far not managed to finish higher than 14th. Albon is also 5:2 in the qualifying duel.
Dave Robson, head of car development at Williams, insists that a “lack of confidence” in the car is the key factor behind Latifi’s problems in 2022. In addition to slower pace relative to Albon, the Canadian has also been found off the track or in the wall more often during the season.
Latifi has struggled to keep up with George Russell in his first two seasons in Formula 1, but the Canadian has also looked off the pace in the first seven races of 2022, despite his teammate returning to Formula 1 after a year’s break.
Williams: More could have been done for Latifi in Q1 at Monaco
“In general, I think he still lacks a bit of confidence and he needs to adjust the set-up for the tyres on each track to get the confidence he needs,” Robson said after Monaco qualifying when asked about Latifi’s performance.
In qualifying at the Principality, Albon again buzzed his teammates by around eight tenths, but both were eliminated in Q1. “It’s a bit of a shame because if he had got a bit more out of it in FT3, his Q1 would have been a lot better,” Robson said of Latifi.
“I think he was a bit frustrated at the end of Q1 because he probably had quite a lot of confidence in the car at the end but just not enough grip at the front to get a lap together. “
Latifi: Barcelona showed how slow the Williams is
Robson explains that Latifi’s confidence problem is also linked to finding the right set-up on a car that generally lacks downforce: “I think in qualifying he just didn’t have the confidence to go with a bit more front wing, so with a better aero balance in the car. I think that’s what happened here. “
Latifi commented, “I think there are a few balance issues that we would like to solve, but they are just related to the car. Barcelona showed how little downforce we have compared to other cars.”
“It’s a track where you normally drive with maximum downforce. But in the high-speed corners we were just missing a lot based on the GPS data. I think that gave us some good pointers for the longer term development of the car. “
