Albon and Colapinto blames balance issues for early elimination in qualifying

Williams drivers Alexander Albon and Franco Colapinto sounded a disappointed note after having failed to make the cut into the third qualifying session.

Alex Albon looked mighty in the opening segment of qualifying, but he was unable to put a perfect lap together in Q2.

As a result of some balance issues, the Thai driver will only line up 11th on the grid for tomorrow's Singapore Grand Prix.

Reflecting on his day, the London-born driver noted: "The car was definitely quicker than P11 today, so of course I’m disappointed.

"We’ve got a balance issue in the car this weekend and we’ve been trying to improve it, but we’ve not found anything to fix it, so when it’s not there, we’re quick but unfortunately when it is, we’re struggling and that’s what happened in Qualifying.

"We’re also dealing with rear overheating of the tyres quite early in the lap, making it difficult to predict, so it’s not ideal. Whilst it was tricky out there today, I’ll still be fighting in the battle for points tomorrow, so let’s see how we go," said Albon.

His team-mate Franco Colapinto displayed a very strong performance in qualifying, but a mistake on his final push lap meant that he failed to make the cut into the last segment of qualifying.

"I’m a bit frustrated as I can easily look back on my lap and find time that would’ve got me into Q3, but it was still a good Qualifying session. We were hoping for a little bit more today and we were capable of doing that.

The Argentinian insists that he still needs to fine-tune a few things before he feels fully comfortable in his FW46.

"Unfortunately, I made some little mistakes which cost me the chance to progress. There are things to review and improve on, but it was still a decent day.

"The car is in a good window, so we need to keep working towards the race tomorrow to try to get the best result possible.