Williams F1 driver Alexander Albon qualified P9 with a 1:26.940 during the British Grand Prix on Saturday.
Speaking after qualifying, the 28-year-old stated that they were slowly going towards the right direction in terms of getting on top of the balance limitations that the car currently has, also stating that the track cooling down helped in terms of their problems.
He added that the traction had improved on Saturday in the cool and mixed conditions, an area where they have been struggling a lot this year.
“Yes, always hopeful, but that’s not always enough. We came into this weekend on Friday with a car that carried on the same traits as Barcelona and Red Bull Ring. We were scratching our heads a little bit, trying to find how we can get over some of the balance limitations in the car.
“We changed the car overnight, not excessively, but everything towards the right direction. I would say in some ways that some of the limitations are not fixed, but had very good passes over the top. Track conditions definitely helped us, cooling down a lot.
“Some of the traction, which has been a big limitation for us this year, was actually quite good. I think it put us a bit more in line with our rivals, so very happy.”
When asked if making big changes over the course of the weekend has become a regular thing for the team this year, he said:“It has been, yes.”
Last year Williams regularly came out of the box strong with their base set-up. But a fundamental philosophy change with the car over the winter has made that tougher in 2024.
“We are trying to understand it. Historically, we’ve been actually very good at hitting the ground running. The last few weekends, we’ve just, for the most part, had good correlation, but there’s a couple of corners that we’re missing.
“They’re the ones that are causing us issues. We’re doing our Pirelli test on Tuesday, hopefully keep exploring, keep trying to figure out what’s going on.“
The Thai driver also also applauded the team for always being able to capitalise on the opportunities in mixed or tricky conditions, saying they are the moments when the team excels. Canada 2023 was another fine example of that.
“It is. I feel like as a team that’s obviously had a tricky few years, it’s always nice when opportunities like this arise.
“Just because these are the times when I think the team excels at, because taking opportunities and creating opportunity in these circumstances is what I felt like we did very well last year. Again, this year, when it comes, we can capitalise.”
Despite the big change over the winter regarding the design of the car, Albon says the FW46 is still showing signs of going well or badly at the same circuits as previous Williams cars in recent years, aside from Austria.
Although cornering performance has improved, things have regressed a bit in other areas.
“If you actually look, we’re still carrying similar traits, even with all the philosophy changes. There is still a bit of this ebb and flow.
“I would say Red Bull Ring was the only one which wasn’t quite as good as we expected. But it is odd, our car still a little bit.
“We’re quicker in a lot of corners that we were struggling with last year. We fixed a lot of them issues, but at a compromise in many respects.
“Kind of what I was talking about, the traction. We’ve been struggling quite a lot this weekend with the traction. Once the temp dropped, it all came back.”
There’s still looming questions over Williams on how the car will perform during the race. Saturday might have gotten them a good result with the operating window moving in their favour, but Albon is aware of the threats behind.
If they want to score points, he believes passing Stroll and Hülkenberg needs to be done.
“Normally, we outqualify our race car, but this weekend I think our race car was much better on Friday than our short run car.
“We were quicker than the Haas, we were about on par, if not a bit quicker than the Aston. I don’t think that will be the case tomorrow, but let’s see. We’ve obviously got Charles behind us, Checo behind us.
“We’re going to have to overtake some cars in front if we’re going to get some points.”
