Latifi to finally get Williams upgrade

Nicholas Latifi will receive the upgraded Williams package at the French Grand Prix, two races after Alex Albon ran it for the first time.

Williams introduced a major update at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, with the team only able to get it ready for one car at that stage.

Albon sits above Latifi in the drivers’ championship and tested the new package at his home race before also using it in Austria, where Latifi still had to wait due to it being a Sprint weekend with limited practice time, but the team has now confirmed the he will receive the new parts this weekend.

“Having introduced some new parts to Alex’s car over the last couple of races, we are now in a position where both cars can run with the upgrades,” head of vehicle performance Dave Roberts said. “Although the weather in Silverstone, and the Sprint format in Austria were not ideal for testing, we have seen enough encouraging feedback to be confident that we have taken a step forward.

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“With the weather likely to be warm, dry and stable this weekend, we’ll look to use Friday’s running to get Nicky up to speed with the new parts and also to continue to understand how best to exploit the performance of the new package.”

Latifi himself admits he can’t wait to get his hands on the upgrade as he hopes to will move him closer to the midfield battle.

“I’m super excited to get to France because it’s the first race where I’m going to have the upgrade package,” Latifi said. “We’ve seen some positive signs from it on Alex’s car so far, so I’m looking forward to getting my first taste. Hopefully it can bring us that extra bit of relative pace that we’ve missed and put us more in the fight.

“France has a unique track layout with lots of run-off areas, so track limits might be a bit of an issue as it was in Austria. More than anything I’m looking forward to continuing the development of the car and hopefully we can get some good data going forward.”