2024 was a very tough season for the Williams F1 Team, and it is reflected in Pit Debrief’s Driver Rankings as Alex Albon is their highest in 14th.
Australia nightmare the big headline in a tough start
Williams only just had the FW46 ready in time for the Bahrain Grand Prix at the beginning of March as James Vowles attempts to bring the Grove-based team’s facilities into shape fit for a modern team.
They also made big changes to the car characteristics to try and be more competitive at tracks where cornering performance is king.
However, all this left the team with a lack of spare parts. It came back to haunt them at Albert Park in round 3.
In FP1, the Thai driver had a big crash, damaging his chassis. It could not be repaired for the remainder of the event.
The tough call was made to give Logan Sargeant’s car to Albon for the rest of the weekend as no spare chassis was available. He came up just short of points in the race with a P11 finish.
Points finally start to come
After not scoring a single point in the first seven rounds, Albon helped Williams get off the mark in Monaco with a P9. He would go on to score the same result at Silverstone and Monza, before getting the team’s best position of the season with a P7 in Baku as Carlos Sainz and Sergio Pérez crashed out with two laps to go.
Upgrades to reduce an overweight car certainly helped.
Pressure from Franco Colapinto
Following a huge crash in FP3 at the Dutch GP, Logan Sargeant’s time at Williams came to an end after the race as Argentina’s Franco Colapinto replaced him.
Albon had it all his own away against the Floridian. It was a very different story in his nine races together with the 21-year-old.
Although the Thai was only outqualified once on merit in the Grand Prix edition of things — he had a fan left on his car for his final run at Baku in Q3 meaning he did not get a time in for the second one where he was beaten — Colapinto applied proper heat to him for the first time since the 28-year-old joined Williams.
In Singapore, Austin and Abu Dhabi, less than a tenth separated the pair on qualifying day.
Speaking at the Mexico City GP, the 28-year-old Thai discussed how a corner had been turned after a balance disconnection at previous events, and it did seem to help him make a step in performance.
Across their nine events together, Albon won out 6-5 in points, although Colapinto scored at two events compared to just one for the former DTM driver.
A huge challenge coming against Carlos Sainz
2024 was a tricky year for Albon. A number of crashes, along with his team’s issues, means it will be one for him to learn plenty from.
He scored points in seven different races last year, this time around it was just four.
Next year he faces a massive challenge as Carlos Sainz will be his teammate. The Spaniard arguably had his finest season in Formula 1 in the campaign just finished as he won twice, and he pushed Charles Leclerc extremely hard throughout the year.
Albon was blown away by Max Verstappen during his period at Red Bull Racing. He will need to pull out some of his best performances in F1 to give Sainz a run for his money next year. The mistakes of this year need to be cut out.
