Nicholas Latifi says Williams is trying to uncover a potential issue with his FW43B after claiming he was losing six-tenths on the straights at Silverstone.
Latifi’s Williams team-mate George Russell escaped Q1 and then went on to secure his second successive Q3 appearance by finishing seventh in Q2.
Russell claimed eighth on the grid for Saturday’s Sprint but Latifi was eliminated in the first knockout segment.
Latifi qualified 18th, ahead only of the Haas drivers, and was a quarter of a second away from progressing through to Q2.
“The car was feeling good, I could have done a slightly better lap, car balance could have been more in the window, but overall I was quite pleased,” said Latifi.
“When I finished I was happy, frustrated, got out of the car I was happy again, frustrated again.
“Happy because I thought it was a good lap, frustrated that it was very slow. I got out of the car and saw why, not sure what is causing it but I’m losing six-tenths in the straights, just in the straights, so that’s easily Q2 if I get some of that [time].
“We have to understand why, I felt it from the first lap in qualifying that I wasn’t getting as much top speed as we should compared to practice.
“I’m not going to start guessing what it was but I was losing six-tenths and that easily puts me into Q2. But driving wise and set-up wise it’s decent.”
Latifi is optimistic that Williams can remedy the problem and boost his prospects of making progress in Sprint and the grand prix itself.
“Maybe it’s something that’s broken, maybe it’s something not on the right setting that was put in the car, and those things you can normally change [outside of parc ferme conditions],” he said.
“It is frustrating, as we should have been Q2, but with the new format this weekend anything can happen. We have two races to try and move forward, as well as FP2, to try and improve the issue.”
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