Albon: It’s much easier to exaggerate in a Williams

Alex Albon, speaking about the progress made with the Williams team over the past year, at the same time explained the reasons for the difficulties plaguing his teammate, Logan Sargent, who made his debut in Formula 1 in 2023.

According to Alex, despite all his previous experiences, his first year at Williams was all about a very intensive academic process, and that served him well last season. The FW45 car was not so different from the previous model, but it had already mastered its behavior on the track.

“The reason why my results have increased has a lot to do with the fact that I tried to learn something every weekend last year,” Speedcafe quoted Albon. – When it became clear which turns were not suitable for our car, using the tools at my disposal, I was able to spend several sessions working with the settings, trying to figure out all the difficulties.

This year, at the start of each weekend during the first practice, I knew what kind of balance problems were typical for the Williams car. I knew her strengths and weaknesses and was able to respond much more effectively to emerging problems, solve them faster, and my self-confidence was already much higher compared to the previous year.”

Sargent, a newcomer to Formula 1, had no such experience. That’s why Albon explains why it took so long for his teammate to adapt to the FW45. The young American driver had more than once accidents, which cost Williams a lot of money, and team leader James Vowles doubted until the last moment whether it was worth continuing the collaboration with Sargent, but in the end the contract with him was still extended for one year.

“It’s much easier to over-drive our car than to under-drive it,” Albon explained. “You can easily go too deep into a corner and have your lap ruined by the front wheels locking up.” You need experience to figure all this out.

I remember how I made improvements compared to last season, and this despite the fact that I already had the experience of the previous two years in Formula 1. But I had to overcome serious difficulties while learning the characteristics of the Williams car understood.

The most important thing is to understand its strengths and weaknesses and learn to use them in battle with other racers. For example, this year, to avoid difficulties and not allow myself to be overtaken, I could tune the car to a certain bend if a long straight started behind him. We have been able to achieve a lot with such techniques and thanks to them we have been able to end the year with such results.”