Albon blames the degradation of his tires
With a four-stop strategy during the race, Alex Albon revealed that with the significant degradation of his tires, making another pit stop would have surely saved him time.
Four. That’s the number of pit stops Alex Albon made during this 2022 Spanish Grand Prix. An unusually high number of visits to the pits, which can be explained by the Thai driver’s exceptional tire degradation. This is mainly due to extremely high temperatures in Catalonia this Sunday.
In the early drivers to stop, in lap 11, Albon was then the second driver on the grid to change tires for a second time, in lap 25, after Lewis Hamilton in lap 22 who had already stopped at the end of the first lap. A switch to medium tires in lap 45 was then a failure, as the Williams driver returned to the pit lane 9 laps later to cross the finish line on soft tires.
« During the warm-up laps to get to the grid, I already had degradation and it was the same during the race,” explains Albon. « We made four pit stops but I could have made five or six, which probably would have been faster,” he adds.
There was just an incredible degradation, I think I was 20 km/h slower than everyone else in turns 3 and 9, just struggling there. Normally, we’re not that bad. I think there’s something we need to check because it wasn’t normal.
Albon stated that even by slowing down his pace, it was impossible for him to keep his tires alive. « I was driving as slowly as possible and the tires kept on dying. And not just a little, I did my first three laps 2.5 to 3 seconds slower than usual and there was still massive degradation. It was seconds lost, right after the first lap. »
So it was a bit strange. As I said, it’s not normal. The degradation was high and we were expecting it, but today, it was indeed a bit strange.
Alex Albon finished in 18th position, last among the drivers still in the race, two laps behind the leader.
