Race Report: Qatar GP

A rollercoaster race to end a tricky three days in Lusail

Published

01 Dec 2024

Est Reading Time

3 min

It was a rollercoaster evening for Alex in Lusail to end a difficult Qatar Grand Prix weekend.

After finishing P15 in the final Sprint of the year on Saturday, our No23 would line up P16 for the 57-lap race on Sunday.

He made up some positions at the opening corner, but his race almost came to another early end at turn 4 when he was spun around by Lance Stroll.

His FW46 thankfully escaped without major damage and he could continue, whilst the Canadian picked up a 10-second penalty for causing the collision.

The Safety Car was deployed shortly after to clear up the debris following the first-turn collision between Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon and Franco Colapinto, leaving Alex as the only remaining Williams in the race.

When the Qatar GP went green again, Alex settled into his opening stint, running in P15 and managing the degradation well on the medium tyres.

As drivers ahead made their first stops, Alex was sitting in P13 when the race took another turn - punctures in quick succession for Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz brought out the Safety Car for a second time.

Williams took this opportunity to bring Alex in, rolling the dice and putting him onto soft tyres for the final 20 laps of the Grand Prix.

As the Safety Car was coming in, Sergio Perez spun before Alex made a move on Yuki Tsunoda down the main straight.

With Perez stopped on track and Hulkenberg spinning into the gravel, the VSC was deployed before being upgraded to a full Safety Car.

On the third Safety Car restart of the evening, Alex went wheel-to-wheel with Kevin Magnussen at Turn 1 - Alex made it through to P10 but would later be handed a 10-second penalty for causing a collision.

Alex's P10 became P9 when Lando Norris was given a 10-second stop-and-go penalty.

As he entered the closing stages, his soft tyres began to expire. Kevin Magnussen, Valtteri Bottas and Lando Norris all made their way through.

Alex stopped on Lap 55 to serve his penalty and put on fresh softs, dropping him to P15. He returned to the circuit behind the leaders and took the chequered flag.

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"It was a tricky day," Alex reacted, adding: "We were a little bit in no man’s land most of the race being towards the back and we were struggling with pace.

"The Safety Car made it interesting, and we took that opportunity to put on Softs.

"It was an optimistic gamble, but one worth taking because of the pace we had.

"We knew that on every Safety Car restart the first lap was the only one I could overtake and so we made up some positions and we were in the points for a bit, but we were relying on another Safety Car which didn’t come so then the tyres started degrading quite badly.

"For ten laps we had some good pace but ultimately we were not quick enough."