Nicholas Latifi was delighted to make it through to the final round of qualifying in tricky wet conditions for qualifying ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Latifi looked to be heading for elimination in the closing minutes of the first round of the session, but timed his final run to perfection and leaped out of the drop zone into the top ten to secure his progression.
But better was to come, when he posted the tenth fastest time midway through Q2 just before the rain intensified again making it impossible for anyone behind him to improve on their times before the chequered flag.
"A very special day in tricky conditions," Latifi said after the end of the afternoon's track action. "To get through to Q2 was a great achievement and a nice confidence boost, then Q3 was more than we could’ve hoped for!
“When it does rain you obviously hope that there is opportunity," he acknowledged. "What was really key as well was being in the right place at the right time and the team did a great job with that, with the track positioning.
"Straight out of the pits things felt good and I was getting into a rhythm," he explained. "The team did a great job in Q1 and Q2 of putting me in the right place on the track.
"We saw how important that was for Q2 getting that lap in at the right time before the track got worse with the weather," he said. "And yes, we got the lap when we needed to.
Unfortunately that didn't happen for Latifi's team mate Alex Albon, who often makes it through to the second round but this time fell short and will start the race from P16 tomorrow.
"At the end of Q1 we opted to do a cool down lap," he said. "It was a tight call, but in hindsight I don’t think the cool down lap was the best choice."
"We lost too much tyre temperature. The track was starting to dry, and everyone was starting to get faster, but I just couldn’t find enough grip ... Everyone was getting quicker, but actually for me the grip was lower."
Williams' head of vehicle performance Dave Robson was looking for the silver lining in Albon's failure to thrive in the session, despite carrying the latest package of upgrades to the FW44 which Latifi had been lacking.
"Alex was unfortunate to just miss out on Q2 by a tiny margin, which is very frustrating as he would also have had a good opportunity to get into Q3 today," he said.
"His car was working well but he couldn’t get as much from the second set of tyres as he did from the first. We’ll look over the data to see if we could’ve done something better for him."
Having made it through to the final round, Latifi was then forced to miss out on a competitive run in Q3 after a reconnaissance lap on used tyres.
"Unfortunately some car damage meant that Nicky couldn’t set a competitive lap time," Robson revealed. "Nonetheless he had an excellent session and starts the race tomorrow in a good position."
But that high starting position is not without its headaches, as Latifi was first to admit.
"I’m so far out of position and I think to be any further than that was always going to be tricky," he said. "My car’s not the tenth-fastest car, clearly, on the grid,
"It's most likely going to be dry tomorrow for the race. We’re going to have a lot of faster cars coming from behind. We have to see what we can do.
"We need to be very strategic in how we approach the race," he added. "It’ll be a race of attrition with how we manage the tyres. Anything is possible so we’ll focus on our own race and maximise any opportunities that may come our way.
"At the end we have to focus on our race and whatever the result is going to be, it’s going to be.”
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