Alex Albon delivered a remarkable P4 to Williams in qualifying on Saturday at Zandvoort, but the Anglo-Thai racer believes the headwind he encountered in certain low-speed corners in the session mitigated the FW45's "normal problems".
Albon, who expected to struggle this weekend in Zandvoort's high-downforce environment, was on the move from the outset in qualifying, topping Q1, running third in Q2 and then rounding off the top four in Q3.
His fastest lap in the top-ten shootout was 0.853s slower than the quickest time set once again by dominant local hero Max Verstappen.
"There's been this headwind in a lot of these kinds of low-speed corners, braking corners, and we always struggle with low-speed braking," Albon told Sky Sports F1 after the session.
"When you've got this headwind, it makes everything feel better, it gives you that front load on the car and hopefully that wind's not changing tomorrow [for the race], I hope.
"It's hidden the normal problems that we have in our car.
"The tailwind corners have been normally high-speed corners where our car has never been that bad at, so I think there's an element of that going on."
©Williams
Albon revealed that Williams' engineers had factored various wind patterns at various corners into the team's simulations as part of its preparations for this weekend's event.
"Turn 9, Turn 11 have always been terrible corners for us, corners where we've been losing two tenths each corner," added Albon. "And with the headwinds… half a tenth, maybe.
"And so, I think that's helped us a lot. A lot more than normal.
"We actually drove these winds on the simulator. We do play around with it. We knew this wind was good for our car. But we got it, which is nice."
Williams team principal James Vowles conceded that the British outfit had performed above its weight in qualifying, but said that it had also managed to build on the good balance it had noted on Friday.
"Even going into FP1, we noticed the car balance was in a good place, the tyres were in a good place," he explained.
"That gives you something to build on immediately. So, from FP1 onwards, we knew there was a better shot than normal.
"But the conditions today certainly favoured us. Do I think we have a car that in normal dry conditions would have been fourth? No.
"But Alex and the team delivered everything today. It was a very impressive result."
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