Alex Albon’s good run at Monza continues. Following a storming drive to P7 in the Italian Grand Prix last year where he held off the McLarens, he scored another two points on Sunday.
On Saturday, he made Q3 in qualifying, beating Nico Hülkenberg in the final segment. With the German getting a poor start and making subsequent contact with Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, the Thai’s main rivals on the day were Fernando Alonso and Kevin Magnussen.
Aston Martin boxed for the first time on lap 12, Albon extended to lap 17. Williams ultimately covered off the Haas.
The Danish driver made contact with Pierre Gasly on lap 18 at the second chicane, picking up a 10-second penalty and two penalty points. He’ll miss the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Magnussen eventually overtook Albon on the 33rd lap, with the pair around 5s behind Alonso at that point. On the following tour, the Aston Martin pitted.
Despite his far fresher tyres, the two-time F1 World Champion failed to finish within 10-seconds of Magnussen, so he remained in P11.
While the 31-year-old pulled out a 9.1s gap to Albon in the final 20 laps, it was not quite enough to retain P9.
Speaking afterwards, Albon admitted he could not push at 100% throughout the hard tyre stint as graining appeared very quickly.
Nonetheless, he was pleased with the strategy from Williams on the day.
“We were having to really under-drive it to stop the graining from happening.
“Every time we were in a battle, then it was graining the tyres, so we were always not really in a good place to be honest with tyres.
“You could see there was a lot of other drivers, like Kevin, pushing a lot harder throughout the whole stint, harder than us.
“At least for me, I was having to manage the whole way through the race.
“I’m very happy to get the P9, I felt like we didn’t really have the pace to do it, but we did have the strategy.
“No [I don’t think I could have done any better], and I think we got a bit lucky also with Kevin [Magnussen]. I don’t know what the ten seconds were for Kevin.
“We wouldn’t have made it work because Fernando was a lot quicker than us. They boxed obviously for that second set of tyres, but up until that point he was still quicker than me on the hards and he was pulling away.”
At one stage, the 28-year-old said his team was “indecisive all the time” as Albon asked them whether they should fight Magnussen with the Dane holding that penalty.
He explained what went on from his point of view.
“I don’t remember. I think it was if we wanted to keep Kevin behind or not, because he was so much quicker than us.
“I could have kept him behind, but I would have damaged my front left. But we decided […] we didn’t decide it, and then he got past anyway.
“When he overtook me, I had three or four laps of dirty air, and then I grained the tyres straightaway.”
Williams introduced a big update package at Zandvoort, hoping to make some steps forward and potentially fight Alpine for P8 in the Constructors’ Championship.
Albon made Q3 in The Netherlands but was thrown out of qualifying due to an issue with the floor. Monza went decently, although not quite as good as last year.
The Thai admits the car still has the fundamental issues it had before the summer break. He is also extremely wary of the races to come.
“Yeah, still struggling with the same issues, balance-wise. The car has been quicker in the last two races, so I’m happy with that.
“I think I’m keeping steadily pessimistic. Let’s see how the next few races go.”
Teammate Franco Colapinto was knocked out in Q1 as he made an error at Lesmo 2 on his last attempt.
However, the Argentine drove a fantastic race, finishing P12 on debut. He also set a personal best on the final lap, quicker then Albon’s best one.
The Thai was very impressed by what Colapinto did.
“Very strong. He’s done a very good job.”
With eight races and three Sprints to go, Williams trails Alpine by 7 points in the standings.
