Alexander Albon: “To be in 7th and 8th position is a luxury”

Williams is finding a positive dynamic. After three consecutive races outside the points, the Grove team has just finished in the top 10 in the last two events in Monza and last weekend in Azerbaijan. However, this time, it was not just one, but both cars that scored points, as Albon’s seventh place adds to the eighth position obtained by his new teammate Franco Colapinto, who was only contesting his second Formula 1 Grand Prix. A result that gives Williams its best two-car ranking since the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, where Bottas and Massa finished fifth and eighth respectively, as well as a double points finish for the first time since the events in Austin and Mexico last year.

Goals achieved for the end of the season, but aiming to be exceeded.

Now ahead of Alpine in the team standings, with 16 points compared to 13 for the French team, the British team and its boss James Vowles want to continue on this path and aim to score more points before the end of the season. A feat that the Thai driver congratulated himself on after the race. “I think we are now ahead of Alpine, which was the goal for the end of the year,” he told the media, including RacingNews365, explaining that this result is above what the car can achieve and that it was made easier by the accident between Sainz and Perez, as well as a car unexpectedly faster than expected. “We talked about how difficult it is to get P9 and P10, but being in P7 and P8 is luxurious – and we’ll take them.”

« We followed a different strategy from the majority of the grid – and I don’t think it was excellent in the end – and the reason is the time we lost in the midfield battle when I was passed by everyone. We lost six or seven seconds of the race, which would have easily allowed us to finish ahead of Fernando [Alonso in sixth place], but I think we were almost too fast. We thought they were going to come out in front of us, but they actually came out behind me, so it was good in a way.

An increasingly performant car

With a seventh place finish, Albon achieved the best result of his career within the British team, equaling his performances in Montreal and Monza in 2023. More and more convincing results, demonstrating the work provided by the team since the start of the season, which had initially started with a car much too heavy compared to the rest of the grid, but has since managed to solve this problem. “It shows that we have made good progress, and for the update, it’s another race where we scored points and where we were positively quick,” explained Albon, aware that the car is now capable of regularly fighting for points.

Williams seems to finally be on the up after a difficult season and is showing great ambitions, giving their end of the season an exciting look. The British team feels ready to take on new challenges, including surpassing Haas and Racing Bulls in the constructors’ standings. The Singapore Grand Prix could already give us an indication as there are only seven races left in the championship.