Being the only team on the grid—besides Ferrari—to not introduce upgrades in Austin, Williams experienced a weekend full of ups and downs. While Franco Colapinto managed to bag a single point starting from P15 on the grid, Alex Albon had a rather forgettable 100th Grand Prix weekend at COTA. Following a pit lane start in the Sprint race where he scored zero points, the Thai-British driver came home in sixteenth place after picking up some damage at the start on Sunday.
In his media session ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix, Albon was asked whether he felt impressed by the chance he still had to get his head around it after the disappointing sequences of events in Austin. Taking accountability for his spin in the Sprint qualifying, the Williams driver commented that the rest of his weekend had been portrayed in a worse light than it actually was.
Referring to the traffic that compromised his qualifying lap on Saturday and the damage he sustained on the first lap of the race, Albon labelled the United States Grand Prix as one of those weekends where the driver resets and looks ahead to the next race.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think it’s as bad as it’s made out to be. I feel like my mistake in Sprint quali, my fault.
“Obviously we got a bit caught out with the traffic in main quali and then we had lap 1 damage. So it was a little bit of a race weekend where you’re just kind of looking to the next one. So that’s been nice.”
In terms of whether it was frustrating to finish outside the points with a capable car and witness the tough competition amongst the backmarkers for the tail end of the points, Albon agreed that it was rather exasperating. At the same time, he commended their overall performance in Austin and shared optimistic words about having a fast car again this weekend in Mexico City.
Stating that the low-speed corners of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez will suit rivals Haas very well, Albon has claimed that the Grove-based team has modified the car enough throughout the season that they can look forward instead of dreading going backwards in terms of pace during the race.
“Yeah, it is obviously [frustrating].
“The biggest thing is that Haas had a really strong weekend in Austin. I think they’re going to be really quick again this weekend.
“They seem to be really good in low speed and Mexico is just low speed.
“The fight is really to the cars in front.
“I think we’ve upgraded our car enough to a point where we don’t need to look behind us and now we’re looking forwards.
When asked whether the brake locking problem he had talked about the previous weekend was a long-standing issue, Albon confirmed that the Zandvoort package has made the underlying problem more noticeable and that he has been working with the team to straighten out the complication.
“It’s become more apparent [with the upgrades]. So that’s kind of mostly the area I’ve been working on.”.
Given that he has struggled to consistently outperform Colapinto in recent times, Albon was asked to comment on whether anything has changed in terms of balance or his comfort in the car over the last few weekends.
Admitting that the balance of the FW46 has shifted since their last comprehensive upgrade package was introduced at the Dutch Grand Prix, the 28-year-old implied that his side of the garage has perhaps struggled to get on top of the new upgrades in comparison to the Argentine driver’s engineers.
Disclosing that he is planning to adopt Colapinto’s set-up this weekend to determine if it would resolve the issues he has been encountering, Albon added that the circuit in Mexico City boasts the ideal characteristics for him to evaluate his performance in low-speed corners and improve on it.
“It’s been a bit tricky actually. We definitely have a different car balance with the new upgrades that we’ve brought onto the car.
“We’re still yet to really fully understand them. We can see it in the data, we can see where we’re just trying to get to grips with what’s going on.
“This will be the first weekend where we’re just kind of leaning a little bit more towards what the other side of the garage has been doing and just trying to see if that will help fix some of the issues that I’ve been having. And that’s it really.
“I think actually around Mexico it’s going to be really important for us to try to get right, because, on paper, the areas I’ve been struggling with are very corner-specific and they’re corners that Mexico has a lot of, these kind of low-speed corners.”
On the topic of having a stronger teammate in Colapinto than Logan Sargeant, who he can rely on to provide a reference for set-ups for the team to compare, Albon acknowledged that it is “nice” to have such a teammate. Furthermore, he added that it uplifts the entire team to have another driver who can pick up the pieces if his performance falls short during a particular weekend.
“It’s nice. We’ve had a simulator working over the weekend, just trying to, over the last few days, just having a look at the differences. It elevates me, it elevates everyone in the team.
“When I have a bad weekend, we’re still scoring points, so that’s very positive.”
With regard to the question of whether the other side of the garage exerting more pressure is a new situation for him, Albon responded that the challenge posed by the rookie Argentine does not count as a novel experience at all, alluding to his Red Bull days.
“No [it’s not a new situation], I think if you go back a few more years, you can [see I’ve had pressure]. At Williams, sure, but it’s how it’s always been. It’s how you race. It’s how you race since you’re nine years old. So, it’s alright.”
