Franco Colapinto dedicated his “dream” Azerbaijan Grand Prix ninth-place qualifying result to the Williams engineers who rebuilt his car following a shunt in free practice on Friday.
Colapinto was promoted into a race seat after team boss James Vowles made the call to drop Logan Sargeant ahead of the Monza weekend, who himself had suffered a number of crashes throughout the season.
“It was difficult, but you know, more difficult than it was going to be if I couldn't do FP2, and luckily, the boys in the garage did an amazing job too,” he said.
“They didn't even have lunch but they were working flat out to put my car out in FP2. And after they did that they gave me a big confidence boost and a lot of energy to try and achieve a good result for them, for the effort that they have been doing this year.
“It was nice today to give them back a little bit of what they gave me. So I'm very happy about it. Of course, it's still a long way to go but it's always an important moment for you to be in Q3. I even did very good laps. Every lap was on it and I just can't wait for tomorrow.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow…it's a short straight until T1, but I am very excited. It's an amazing moment, my first Q3, and I am very happy about it, to be honest. It's the moment every driver dreams of.”
Both Williams drivers made it into Q3 on a day where the team showed true pace, although a strange situation where Albon left the pits with a cooling fan still attached did take some of the gloss off the achievement – but not for Colapinto himself.
“It's a very important moment for Williams, it's for me a dream come true. After yesterday was going to be tough, but we did a very good comeback, so we're happy,” he said.
“I achieved it in my second weekend in F1, so I can't be any more happy. It was a very good session. I think we put the laps in. Every time I had to go out, we did a very good job as a team.
“Of course, I would have been a little bit happy to finish in front of Aston, maybe, but we did a little step on the set-up to see what we can do if we could gain a little bit more for the last run on the new tyres but it didn't really work out, the tyres, the rear stayed alive for the whole lap but I think the team did an amazing job to put the two cars in Q3.”
