Latifi feels his Williams car is ‘not capable’ of same speed as Albon

Nicholas Latifi feels his Williams car is not “capable” of the same performance shown by teammate Alex Albon.

The Canadian has struggled for pace in 2022 and is one of just two drivers yet to score a point, the other being Haas’ Mick Schumacher.

In contrast, Albon, who joined Williams this year replacing George Russell, has scored points on two occasions and has out-qualified Latifi at every race so far.

While the Canadian concedes building confidence in the very different 2022 car has been a problem, he is also beginning to question the parity of both cars. 

“For sure, at the beginning of the season, there was part of that, and you could maybe still attribute some of the lap time delta to that,” Latifi said on his confidence struggles.

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“For me, looking far beyond that and past any of the confidence limitations that I feel I was having in the beginning, the pace would just not be there.

“There are situations where I just don’t feel that my car is capable of doing what I see he’s doing on the data, which is not a nice feeling to be in.

“It’s a bit puzzling. But again, we’ll use this two-week break to see what we can analyse.”

In 2022, Williams has also been among the slowest teams on the grid, with Albon’s P12 in qualifying in Canada, the first time the team had a car in Q2 since Bahrain.

“We’ve been lacking so much pace, right from the off,” Latifi said.

“On low fuel, high fuel, when tyres are in a good window and we’re managing tyre degradation, we’re just way too far off.

“We have to use this two-week break to understand why and see if we can find anything. For me, it has to be something quite fundamental.

“There’s no situation or condition on track, even when people aren’t pushing flat out and I feel that I am that the pace is there to our competitors. So we’ll see. Try and reset going into Silverstone, and go from there.”

Latifi’s poor results have led to speculation he could be replaced by Alpine junior Oscar Piastri for 2023, if not earlier.

And though Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer has hinted the Australian will be in F1 next year, he is remaining coy on where.

“Oscar’s a bright young talent coming through, as we all know,” he said.

“He’s been testing last year’s car at more than just Silverstone. He’s done a few others and will do some more in the future. He’s doing very well.

“We’re contracted with Oscar and we have some options on him. So, there’s no real need to hurry that, so we’ll take our time and at the right moment, within the silly season, we’ll have a look around and make those types of decisions.”