Alex Albon felt hopeful about Williams’ pace at the F1 Bahrain GP despite a difficult start to the weekend, missing out on Q2.
Williams has had an impressive start to the 2025 season, with more points in the opening rounds than they achieved in the entire season in 2024, largely due to Alex Albon’s performance as he bagged 18 of the 19 points.
Although he ended the Bahrain Grand Prix 12th, he admitted, “We had a really good pace apart from the four or five laps here. We were coming on really strong in that second stint on the mediums.”
A missed opportunity
The Thai-Brit saw points on the cards, especially in the earlier stages of the race, saying in the print media zone that before the Safety Car, he predicted a P8 or 9 finish as going long on the first stint was paying off.
“We overtook Ollie [Bearman] on track. I was catching Carlos [Sainz] and Yuki [Tsunoda] about 6, 7 tenths a lap.
“I was right behind them when the safety car happened. I think I was two laps away from getting passed. I think that was about P9, maybe P8, with Esteban on the cards there.
“We could have created the delta to go on softs at the end of the race. That was the plan. That was the plan. That would have been good for us on a cooling track.”
When the Safety Car came, it levelled the playing field and took away Albon and Williams’ advantage of fresher tyres in the second stint. It was compounded by having to double stack as Carlos Sainz was just ahead before the stops.
“The Safety Car reset the race for us. We had to double stack. I lost two or three positions in the pit stop. It put us in a rock and a hard place.
“We just used the hards. We wanted to use the softs but we couldn’t because it was too long. We used the new mediums.
“Scrappy. Points for sure were on the cards today. A little bit unfortunate, but good pace.”
The 29-year-old is confident he had the second quickest car in race trim after Pierre Gasly in the midfield fight.
“You don’t really see it, but today the race pace was really strong. We were fighting through cars all race.
“To me, we were the second quickest midfield car behind today. So to come away in P12 is a bit frustrating.”
Albon was put on the back foot in qualifying when the FIA’s late call deleting Nico Hülkenberg’s lap in Q1 meant Albon missed out on the progression to the second segment.
He said that Williams had been pushing the FIA to make the call earlier, but to no avail.
“We were hounding them, but they didn’t see it in time. So yes, lesson learned. We’ll try something else.
“I mean, maybe they have a lot on. It’s not one of those tracks like Red Bull Ring, where you’re getting pinged left, right centre. It should be a bit easier to follow.
“I think this weekend was could have, should have, would have.
Albon a lot happier with the car on Sunday
Throughout practice and into qualifying, Carlos Sainz looked to have a clear edge on Alex Albon. That reflected in their grid spots of P8 and P15.
However, even before the Spaniard picked up significant damage, the Thai driver was a lot more competitive in race trim thanks to trying some things out on his laps to the grid.
“I was quite happy with the car until this weekend. This weekend, I struggled a little bit with the hotter track temp, possibly a little bit more than Carlos actually on Friday.
“Saturday was a little bit unknown, but I think Carlos did a very good job on Saturday. I think Q3 was always on the cards, but you never know. But I think Carlos was a bit stronger than me on Saturday.
“We tried some stuff on the laps to grid today, and it seemed to fix some of the issues. We got our pace back on Sunday, and lessons learned for the rest of the year.”
