Alex Albon: James Vowles knows what he’s talking about

Alex Albon started his second season at Williams with a top 10 finish and believes the team has made significant progress since 2022. Alex is also happy that James Vowles is now in charge, although much of what he talks about relates to the team’s long-term plans.

Alex Albon: “Of course I would say that the team has made significant progress, if you remember the positions we were in at the beginning of last season. Then we were in a very difficult position, although as far as I remember we managed to get into the second part of qualifying and we were even a little surprised.

To be honest, this year not everything went well during pre-season testing and during Friday practice in Bahrain, but on Saturday and Sunday we managed to turn the tide. In my opinion, the team scored points in the first race of the season for the first time in about six years. Of course we can be proud of this, because we started the championship well.

The level of our competitiveness was even a bit surprising, because the impressions of the car’s behavior on the track are similar to last year, but it is clear that we managed to make small changes for the better in several areas, and as a result the FW45 became much more efficient. At the same time, we know that we can continue to make progress, and that really encourages me.

Williams now has a new CEO, James Vowles, who of course applies the knowledge and experience he gained at Mercedes. He is a very smart person and knows what he is talking about, knows what needs to be done to get victories. All this is very necessary for the team at the moment and in the medium term we need to review all aspects of our work.

Of course, a lot of what James talks about is more of a long-term plan for Williams, but I’m glad to see some progress already being made.