Albon: The wear of the rubber made driving difficult

In Melbourne the Williams team had a difficult weekend and in the Australian race it was only represented by Alex Albon, driving Logan Sargent’s car, but he also failed to earn points.

Dave Robsonchief race engineer: “Because we hadn’t completed any long series of laps before today, we didn’t start the race in the best shape.

We understood that difficulties awaited us due to the deterioration of the rubber, especially after we learned on Friday evening that the prescribed tire pressure had been increased. At the same time, we were unable to take sufficiently effective measures to somehow reduce the consequences. Therefore, the front tires had problems due to granulation and the rear tires were subject to degradation.

The car lacked speed all weekend and Alex had to put too much pressure on the tires in order to complete the laps a little faster, which only worsened the degradation. As a result, we couldn’t even compete with the machines we could normally compete against.

A few fast cars didn’t finish and it’s disappointing that if we hadn’t had any problems on Friday we could have fought for the points.”

Alex Albon (11th): “Our early pit stops somewhat masked the fact that we lacked pace today. We tried to maintain our ability to fight through the tactics of previous pit stops, after which we had to regain positions, but the most important factor was still that our opponents were faster than us.

Every time I tried to ride at their pace, the tires started to deteriorate intensively, and when I rode alone I lost up to three and a half tenths on each lap. The degradation of the rubber was very strong, which made driving difficult in every possible way, and we need to find out the reasons for this.

With the cars of the two top teams eliminated, it’s a shame we couldn’t take advantage of this when our rivals did, but it just underlines that we weren’t quick enough to fight for the points.

It was a difficult weekend for Williams, but the whole team worked together and I can only thank them for their hard work. I also have to thank Logan Sargent, he is a real team player.

Taking all circumstances into account, I can be satisfied with my work, but our entire team must gather strength to win back in the next phase in Japan.”