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With the Williams Racing Team
enjoying their Formula One 2022 season summer break came the announcement
from the team that 2022 team driver Alex Albon would be continuing with the
team in what was described as a multi-year agreement between the team and
driver.
With the team still firmly entrenched at the bottom of the championship
order and with struggles with the 2022 FW44 this decision to continue with
Alex was an encouraging one for both the team and fans. After a year out of
Formula One in 2021 Alex joined the Williams team with a lot to prove. His
signing shows that the team has come away from the opening half of the 2022
season very encouraged by the performance of the ex Red Bull driver.
Coming in on the back of several years with George Russell leading the team
Alex had a lot to prove in his position with the team. But despite only
achieving three points in the races so far his season has being marked by
several notable achievements including consistently outpacing team-mate
Nicholas Latifi, being a regular midfield runner as well as having achieved
some outstanding qualifying performances.
It is for these reasons that it was not a total surprise to see Alex high of
the teams list of things to have in place for the 2023 season. Thankfully he
would agree to continue with the team indicating a degree of confidence in
the teams plans for the 2023 season and beyond.
But how does Alex view his own performances in 2022 so far. On paper it has
not been a season that has had a consistent positive note to it for Alex,
maybe apart from his notable performance in Australia where he adopted a
radical tyre strategy that he saw him achieve the team first points of 2022.
When questioned after the last race prior to the summer break, the Hungarian
Grand Prix, Alex spoke of how is overall feeling positive about his
performances despite the lack of points scoring results.
Alex said: "I'm really happy if I'm honest."
"I feel like it's been a great year back into Formula 1. Obviously, we're
not really where we want to be in terms of positions but, personally, I'm
very happy and I feel like it will only get better.
"I only feel like I'll improve and get stronger as the season goes on, and
same with the team.
"I think we've got some really good chemistry and good dialogue between us
and we're pretty sure what we need to do to improve, it's just about doing
it."
Now that he has signed to continue his partnership with Williams and with
team principal Jost Capito being open in his praise for Alex, Alex spoke of
his role in the future with the team as they work to move the team forward.
"I enjoy it, I feel like it’s a different kind of role I’ve played this year
compared to previous years. Obviously, when I came into Formula 1 I really
felt like I was just learning everything, everything was happening so
quickly.
“I went straight into Red Bull within six months and it was like I wouldn’t
say I was expected to know everything, but I had to be on top of my A-game
if I was to perform.
“Time is so valuable and you can’t take it for granted. I feel like during
the one year I had away from the sport, that’s almost three years by that
point being involved around F1. I’ve come back much more experienced, much
more mature.”
He added: “I feel the team rely on my feedback much more than Red Bull."
“We are a growing team, we are not where we want to be. We have goals to go
forward into the future. A lot of that is the feedback I give to the team
and I know how a championship-winning team do things.
“We need to play some catch-up and what I can give to the team is some
knowledge and some stuff Red Bull did differently to Williams that I hope I
can bring to the team for us to speed that process up.”
As for where he felt the Williams Team was at remaining at the bottom of the
championship order even with the introduction of an upgraded FW44 Alex felt
that the new car was different and that any improved performances would be
track-specific.
Alex added: "We know where we're weak, and we know why we're weak, which is
one of the main steps of moving forwards."
"We know that the new package is a bit more sensitive than the previous one.
As you can see, when it's in its window, it's strong. So we just need to
figure out ways to help that and get that consistency, and get that window a
little bit bigger.
"I think once we can do that we can really start challenging in all
circuits. But for now, we're kind of relying on a few tracks to challenge
for points and the other ones, we were kind of scrambling a little bit."
As for where the team would see some performance gains Alex added: "We've
got three European races, hopefully we can bounce back strong. They're three
very different styles of circuits as well."
"I'm thinking Spa and Monza are not bad tracks for us, but we'll see what we
get."
In regard to 2023 Alex commented on the GoF1 show how how he felt the season
and with its regulations remaining very similar did offer team like Williams
the opportunity to close the gap on the midfield.
Alex said: “The way I see it now is that a really good opportunity for teams
to bounce back make up ground quickly.”
“The way these cars are, it’s so open, the concepts are so new, you can see
a team like us – we’ve changed completely the philosophy of the car within
six months.
“In previous-generation cars, you spent year-on-year refining what you had,
you got yourself almost in a hole because you exploited every single part of
the car you could over five years of never changing anything.
“Now’s the time when, with such a new generation of car, you can really make
big decisions, big changes and play catch-up very quickly. I say why not?
“We know as a team where we are struggling, what type of corners we lose out
in compared to other people. We know the reason why, it’s not something we
are scratching our heads about.
“So that gives us a clear direction to go towards if we can get that. Why
not? Why can’t we score points more regularly towards the end of the
season?” |
