Atlassian Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon put on quite a show during the 2025 Australian GP qualifying session, earning him a P6 starting position for Sunday’s race after putting in a blistering lap of 1:15.737. After his excellent performance, Albon will start ahead of both Scuderia Ferrari drivers.
Alex Albon’s tyre lottery payoff
While speaking in the print media zone afterwards, Albon said that he was very satisfied with his lap.
Though he acknowledged that there had some concerns regarding the balance of the deg between the front and rear, the Williams driver stated that he believed that they had got it in the right window to maximise their performance over one lap.
“I’m really happy with my lap,” he said.
“I got most of it out of it. These tyres are super sensitive and sector 3 was, at the beginning actually, a bit of a lottery.
“It was hard to understand why the tyre was going one way or the other way in terms of front deg and rear deg. And then by the last run of the day I kind of hooked it up and then finally got that time out of it. So I’m very happy.
“I feel like we’ve obviously done a huge step from last year to this year, not just in terms of performance but also in terms of just parts and weight and everything else. It feels like we’ve approached this weekend very differently to last few months.”
Williams’ improved pace over 2024
Albon believes that Williams’ performance in the Australian GP shows the team’s improvements over the last season and the winter break, especially with other teams having also made significant improvements. Albon described that as a positive sign and anticipates a “really interesting” 2025 season.
“Yes, it does [validate the fact that Williams has improved significantly]. I think it also validates just how tight the grid is. I mean, the Alpine and the RB, I think any of us could have qualified P5 under the right conditions. It’s going to be a dogfight in the midfield and we’re getting closer to the top teams as well.
“It’s going to be a really interesting season. It’s all to play for, I think. On our side, I think we were favouring a bit more race pace than qualifying pace. Our race pace yesterday looked pretty impressive.“
Albon on the expected rain on Sunday
Despite the positives from Qualifying, Albon remains cautious as he approaches the Australian GP race, noting the high probability of rain, which can result in an unpredictable race, as seen in last year’s Brazilian GP.
“That being said, it’s wet tomorrow. We always say it, but I do think we focused a bit more on the race car than the qualifying car as a general rule of thumb from last year to this year.
“I mean, I feel like P6 on a race like tomorrow doesn’t mean anything. Let’s see. It’s honestly going to be quite unpredictable.
“We’ve never driven the tyres before on a street track that’s going to have very low grip, paint lines everywhere. Yeah, welcome to Melbourne.”
Regardless, the Thai driver is confident that Williams can prove themselves as a competitive force in the wet, and they learned from Brazil last year.
“We have a decent car in the way, I think. It doesn’t always show. It’s a bit circuit-specific. I think some of the issues, the brake issues that we had in Brazil.
“We made some decisions this weekend to make sure that we don’t have the same issues that we had in Brazil in case it rains. So, I’m confident that we should get on top of it, yeah.”
