Albon hopes to have “a better foundation to build on this season”
As the D-day of winter testing approaches, Alex Albon, encouraged by his first drive aboard the FW45, hopes to have a high-performance car in his hands to ensure good development.
While James Vowles has just taken his first steps at Williams as a team principal, driver Alex Albon, who is entering his second season with Williams, is eager to start winter testing to solidify a good first impression at Silverstone.
“It’s great to be here in Bahrain before the pre-season testing, especially knowing that we now officially have James [Vowles] on board,” said the 26-year-old driver.
« We had our shakedown at Silverstone last week – which allowed us to do the first laps with the car – and even though the conditions at Silverstone are completely different, it is important to do these circuit laps. »
Very short tests that will need to be optimized to quickly extract the best from the FW45, which, he hopes, will be a better foundation than last year’s car.
« Now that we are here in Bahrain for the actual tests, we have to adapt to the different conditions, with a day and a half each to get comfortable with the car. In the end, it’s not a lot, so we have to be proactive in getting the car in a suitable place as quickly as possible, like we did pretty well last year. I hope we’ll have a better foundation to build on this season, but it’s hard to make any comments at this stage. »
And precisely, while Felipe Drugovich replaces Lance Stroll at Aston Martin for the duration of the tests, a more predictable program has been unveiled at Williams. Alex Albon will be the first to take the wheel of the FW45 on Thursday morning, followed by the American rookie Logan Sargeant in the afternoon. The latter will then continue with the full day on Friday, before the Thai driver takes over for the final day on Saturday.
Here’s how our duo will be sharing the FW45 for Pre-Season Testing in Bahrain! 🤝🇧🇭#WeAreWilliams @alex_albon @LoganSargeant pic.twitter.com/A06OStWhi2
— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) February 21, 2023
