Alex Albon says he hopes to make up lost ground on Saturday, after missing out on pretty much the whole of second practice for the Singapore Grand Prix on Friday.
Having spent FP1 on test duties, Albon completed just five laps in FP2 before reporting to the Williams pit wall that his power unit was cutting out, forcing him to return to pit lane where the engineers soon diagnosed the issue.
"We think the issue is battery related," he said. "I started my lap and it felt okay but then I just started to lose deployment as I went on the straight. I think we already know the problem."
However the problem could not be resolved quickly, and Albon was sidelined for the rest of the session. The good news it that the car should be back in working order for Saturday. "It shouldn’t be too long to fix."
Williams' head of vehicle performance Dave Robson added some more detail about the situation in the team's post-session press statement.
"We opted to do some testing with Alex in FP1, expecting to complete the race preparation during FP2," he explained.
"Unfortunately an issue within the ERS system of the PU meant that we had to end his FP2 after just a couple of laps on the hard tyre. We’ll fit a different module to Alex’s car overnight and look to make up for lost time during FP3.
Albon said that this wasn't the sort of circuit where you wanted to miss out on any track time if possible. "Around here you want the mileage because it’s such a confidence building circuit.
"Aside from the issue, the car hasn’t felt too bad," he continued, looking on the bright side. "I don’t believe we’ll suffer from any penalties, but we’ll have a proper look tonight.
"With the temperature of the car here this weekend and the lack of running time, we’ll have to do a little bit of guess work tomorrow, but it should be fine going into FP3 tomorrow."
By contrast, Albon's team mate Logan Sargeant had a largely trouble free, much needed by the rookie on his first visit to the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
"Logan had a more successful day and completed his plan without any issues," confirmed Robson. "He got some good experience of this tricky circuit under his belt.
"He was able to get a good sense of how to trade low and high fuel performance at this track," Robson added. "We’ve got a lot of work to do to improve the car, but we know what we are looking for. We’ll certainly be able to make some progress."
"FP2 was much better than FP1 so that was a good step forward," reported the American. "I was on a semi-decent lap on the Soft tyre but made a mistake in the last corner which cost us the lap time.
"Still a lot of good learning from today," he continued. "We have a couple of different bits coming tomorrow that should help me out.
"As a team, we knew it was going to be a tough weekend feeling those limitations that we haven’t really experienced in the last couple of races. We just need to try and find a way around them the best we can."
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
