Williams driver Alex Albon certainly had an interesting weekend. An impressive battle in both the sprint race and in the main race saw Albon fight for points. However, he went home with no more points to his name.
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This year’s Williams car has definitely shown its pace on certain weekends when the circuit is more suited for the car, normally on circuits with long straights. That was certainly proven in Canada a few weeks ago, when Albon drove his Williams, at that point bottom in the standings, to a 7th place finish.
When arriving in Spielberg for this past weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, he thought that he could take advantage of another straight-filled track to pick up more points and firmly place him and his Williams team in 9th place, above AlphaTauri, in the Constructors’ Championship, with the possibility of jumping Alfa Romeo and Haas as well.
However, a mix of bad luck and gambles on strategy that failed saw him finish P11 in the race on Sunday and P13 in the Sprint on Saturday.
Albon explained how costly it was racing Kevin Magnussen after making his first stop of the day under VSC conditions. Stroll then caught him late in the race to take away P10 on the road.
“I struggled a little bit on that first prime [hard] tyre, we came out after the [Virtual Safety Car] within a lot of the guys who started on primes. To be fair, Kevin [Magnussen] is good at defending and he kept me behind longer than I should have been, so I destroyed my tyres a bit fighting him.
“I struggled a bit through that whole stint and when I saw Stroll pit ahead, I knew… It’s the Jaws music coming from behind and he got me.”
With all things considered, Albon recollected on his weekend and thought of what might have been. However, he found his next target for a points race: the Belgian Grand Prix in about 3 weeks time.
While Albon thinks Sunday was maximised, Saturday was one to learn from as switching from inters to dries was a mistake. Esteban Ocon finished P7 in the sprint and the Thai was ahead of him before boxing.
“P11 I think is all we could have done today. [In the Sprint], I think we should have been in the points… I think we should have come away from this weekend with points – it’s a track that suits us more than others.
“Maybe Spa, I’m thinking, could be the next chance, but it’s great progress, we’re showing that we’re now fighting… Also Logan [Sargeant] had a great race in P13, so it was a great race for both of us. We’re making progress and that’s the main thing.”
Had this been 2 or 3 years ago at Williams, Albon would’ve been happy just to try and fight for a Q2 spot. But now, him and Logan Sargeant have their expectations set a bit higher, and all is up for grabs when the British Grand Prix gets underway this weekend.
