Nicholas Latifi's F1 progress lacking due to qualifying "struggle"

Nicholas Latifi

Latifi's F1 progress lacking due to qualifying "struggle"

The Canadian has been out-qualified 9-0 by team-mate George Russell

Sam Hall

Friday 18 September 2020 11:15

Nicholas Latifi is aware he has to raise his game in qualifying if he is to further prove himself in Formula 1.

Canadian Latifi, who has been out-qualified 9-0 by Williams team-mate George Russell this season, readily concedes the one-lap battle on a Saturday afternoon is his main area of weakness.

"Qualifying, putting it together on a Saturday, is more of a struggle," said Latifi.

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"If one thing goes wrong, or the car is not feeling exactly how I need it, I struggle to get the most out of it every time. So that is an area that I need to improve on."

Despite his lack of Saturday pace, Latifi heads Russell in the championship standings by virtue of his two 11th-place finishes compared to the Briton's one.

That has at least left him satisfied with his rate of improvement across the grands prix so far.

"In general, the progress on my side, I feel each race I am getting more experience and in particular the races with the race pace," continued Latifi.

"I feel like I am making good improvement in understanding how to treat these tyres.

"It was one of my strengths in F2 but it is quite a lot different in F1 unfortunately. But I feel like I am making good steps in the past races and am more or less on the pace of what I need to be with my competitors."

The schedule to date, with nine races in 11 weekends, has been a daunting one for the teams, leading Latifi to suggest there have been "some positives and negatives".

"I think it is great because you are thrown straight back into the next race and you keep the rhythm, you don't have a break out of the car so everything is fresh in your mind," assessed Latifi.

"But I think, if there are really big, fundamental things that you want to go away from the track to work on, whether that be in the simulator or not driving, you don't have as much time to process or digest or physically do work on certain things, you just get straight back to it so it depends where you are."

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