Williams sets top-speed record in Las Vegas
Despite having endured a very tough race weekend last time out in Las Vegas, Williams left Nevada with an impressive top-speed record courtesy of Alexander Albon.
Williams have endured two very difficult races at Sao Paulo and Las Vegas. Having displayed eye-catching pace in the tricky wet conditions in qualifying at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Alexander Albon secured a spot in Q3. However, the London-born driver caused the fifth red flag of the session after smashing three corners of his FW46 at Turn 1.
The replays showed that as Albon hit the brakes for the first corner, he lost the rear of his Williams. The Thai driver reported on the radio that his brakes might have failed, but his race engineer answered that he could not see any failure on the data.
Although Williams was eager to repair his car for the race, Albon was unable to take part in the 71-lap race at Sao Paulo following the significant damage his car suffered during the incident.
Albon's team-mate Franco Colapinto also sustained a high-speed crash, but Williams was able to fix his FW46 for the race and the Argentine driver was able to compete in this rainy Sao Paulo Grand Prix. However, Colapinto suffered a second crash in the race, which saw the team leave Brazil with two heavily-damaged cars.
The Grove-based squad was able to repair both cars for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. However, it endured a mixed start to its qualifying after Albon got eliminated in Q1. However, his team-mate Colapinto made it through to Q2 and was aiming for the top-10 shootout when he struck the inside wall at Turn 16 and slammed into the barrier on the other side of the track.
Despite the difficulties, there was an eye-catching result Williams achieved at the Las Vegas Grand Prix where they failed to score any championship points.
During the 50-lap Nevadan race, Albon reached 369km/h which was higher than any other driver this season. In fact, it was the highest top speed for the last six year, equalling former Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel’s top speed at the 2019 Italian Grand Prix. Albon reached 13194rpm in 8th gear when he recorded his eye-catching top speed.
