Williams Racing driver Alex Albon finished P15 at last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix. He had a strong start making up some places but said post-race that he had expected to be finishing P12 or P13 based on his performance. However, he ran over the white line on pit entry late on which saw him receive a five-second penalty. All in all, another point-less weekend for Williams at a time when their rivals have gotten further out in front after a double-points finish for Haas F1 Team, as well as one for Alpine.
Albon had made a steady start gaining places before the first pit stop window but after coming in on Lap 12 for a set of fresh hard tyres, he found himself down in P19 as the team put their plan for what they hoped would be a one pitstop race for their man in motion. Another driver with the same approach was Charles Leclerc and the Williams driver surely enjoyed his battle with the Ferrari man. However, Albon made clear that there was no good time to pit in his post-race remarks.
“Just in traffic, coming out in traffic,” Albon said. “Didn’t feel like there was ever a good place to box or to come out because we were fighting a lot. We were losing a lot of time before and after pitstops.”
With the one stopper clearly unsuitable as a plan, Albon came in for the final time on Lap 39, fitting new hards to take him to the end. Unfortunately, at this stage he ran over the white line on pit entry, and to no one’s surprise was given. a five-second penalty.
The fact Albon was all over the back of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll – having been overtaken by the Canadian on Lap 55, shows there is pace in the Williams which must surely bode well for the future. Although a P15 finishing position was Albon’s outcome of the race after his penalty was applied.
A shame seeing how according to Albon “Honestly, the car felt pretty good. Relative to the weekend, it was not a bad balanced car.”
Unfortunately, any momentum was lost after he crossed the white line on pit entry late on calling the incident ‘frustrating’. Although Albon did express confusion as to the team’s strategical decisions in the run up to his error after being asked how tricky it is when entering the pits.
“It’s not tricky,” stated Albon. “I don’t know why we chose to pit. We knew that two cars were going to overtake us because of the [tyre] deg and the pace offset. But we decided to race them and then pit during it, which lost so much lap time. I was side by side, three corners in the marbles.”
Nevertheless, Albon did apologise for his error: “My mistake, but at the same time, we could have definitely prevented it.”
Albon had expected the Austrian circuit to suit his car – as revealed when asked as to which tracks before the summer break would suit Williams.
“I don’t know.” Albon admitted. “I thought this weekend would have suited us, but it really didn’t. I think Silverstone still has a chance to suit us.”
“I believe P12 or P13 was possible today,” Albon said post-race. “I know it’s not points but I don’t like finishing behind where I think we could’ve finished…We do have some learnings from this weekend that we can take to Silverstone, however there are still some questions as I didn’t expect us to be lacking in performance this much.
“Hopefully, we won’t suffer the same problems next week and can come back stronger.”
