I only missed one chance to score points this year – Albon

Williams’ Alexander Albon scored in seven out of 22 grands prix this year, plus one of the six sprint races – but he thinks there was only one other occasion he could have taken points home.

His tally of 27 points single-handedly put his team seventh in the constructors’ standings, as well as leaving him 13th in the driver’s standings.

“I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved at the team,” said Albon. “I think about the races that we’ve scored points in, we haven’t had really a smooth race where we’ve just gone ‘ah, that was nice’. I wish we had more of them.

“But unfortunately a lot of them are holding up a bunch of cars behind us, which is what we’ve become renowned for.”

Williams rose from the bottom of the points standings in 2022 to take seventh place, their best result for six years. Albon said “the car’s improved a lot” in his second year at the team.

“We’re going into every weekend feeling like there’s a chance to score points. But even in that case, our race pace is not always that great. And yet we still come away with points.

“I have to say that in reflection, I’ve had a lot of fun moments from this year. I think Melbourne was the only race where I felt like I missed an opportunity to score points. But every other race we’ve done this year, when there’s been a chance, we’ve done it. And I think that’s been the main difference against our rivals.”

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Albon qualified eighth for the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne and was running sixth when he crashed out on lap seven. The track’s low-speed corners did not suit the Williams FW45, which led to a set-up compromise that then took away performance in the high-speed corners. That was a problem the team faced at many tracks in 2022 as well, and something Albon believes and the team improved on this year.

He and team mate Logan Sargeant qualified fifth and sixth respectively at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, but the set-up which delivered that result worked against them in the race, where they finished 12th and 16th.

“Our car was not P5, P6 on paper, it was maybe P9, P10,” Albon reflected. “And likely we compromised too much of the Sunday car for Saturday. We went into Sunday and within three laps I was overheating the tyres.”

However he said the knowledge he gained of the team’s car the previous seasons left him better equipped to get the best out of their package this year.

“I actually think this year we’ve done a much better job at it than last year, because a lot of the reason why I think the performance on my side has improved is because last year I was learning,” he said. “Every race weekend I would go into, I would think ‘well this corner doesn’t suit our car’, and I would spend a couple of sessions with my tools and with my set-up trying to fix these issues.

“This year, when I would go into every weekend, in FP1 I already knew the general balance problems of our car. I knew the strengths and weaknesses, and I’ve been able to react to the problems much more, understand them much quicker, and I’ve been much more on the front foot compared to last year.”

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