Alex Albon: “a missed opportunity” this season for Williams
Eleventh and just outside the points at the last Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, the Thai driver reflected on his team's season. In his opinion, Williams suffered from too many problems this season and should have scored far more points.
A winter to try to regroup after a disappointing season. That is the main mission for Williams during this winter break. After several seasons where they seemed to be progressing, particularly in 2023 when they scored 28 points, the British team had a more challenging 2024 campaign with only 17 points scored. If they finished in seventh place in the teams’ standings last year, they have fallen back two places this season and finished only ahead of Sauber. A drop in performance that Alex Albon sought to explain.
A car well above the regulatory weight at the start of the season
According to him, the Grove team suffered from several issues that forced them to delay certain upgrades. A car that was too heavy at the start of the season was notably the cause of the team’s difficulties. According to Albon, that’s when Williams should have done better. My general opinion is a feeling of a small missed opportunity. It’s easy to focus on the end of the season and the accidents, but in reality, we started with an overweight car. We should have scored a lot more points at the beginning of the year.
A weight issue that affected the British team throughout the first part of the season as the team had to address this problem before thinking about developing the car. « We had just one update, which was a good improvement, and we had a respectable middle part of the season », Albon told the media, including Autosport.
« The plan was to focus early on next year and, by then, many teams had surpassed us. So, if we had started a bit stronger, like Aston Martin did, with a peak at the beginning of the season before declining later, we would have still had a solid season, but that wasn’t the case. »
The Williams driver expressed disappointment with the team’s start to the season. He would have liked to take advantage of the lack of developments in other cars to score as many points as possible, as Aston Martin did. Nevertheless, the Thai driver praised the team’s work, which was able to develop the car as soon as the weight issue was resolved, particularly after the summer break. Unfortunately for the Grove team, the gap was already too significant with other teams such as Haas or Racing Bulls to hope to catch up with them in the championship.
An end of season marked by costly accidents
« I think our best period was in the middle of the season: Monza, Baku, a bit of Singapore. That’s when our car was working well, but everyone caught up with us. » The former Red Bull driver reflected on the nightmare end of the season experienced by the team.
Significant accidents in Brazil and then in Las Vegas forced the team to install old parts on both cars, which directly affected their performances. We also had a lot of bad luck, many problems, and quite a few accidents. But, in many ways, I feel like it’s more of a missed opportunity at the beginning of the season than anything else.
Great hopes for 2026
Despite everything, the former Toro Rosso driver is not worried about the future and believes a lot in the Williams project, especially starting in 2026 with the arrival of the new regulations. Changes that James Vowles, head of Williams, is eagerly anticipating, seeing it as an opportunity for Williams to return to the forefront. A directive supported by Albon.
« In the end, I’m not too upset. I’m not here for short-term success. I’m here for the long term, so I’m satisfied with that. I think James is very honest about our situation, showing the direction and setbacks we need to accept in certain areas to be in a better position in the future. »
« He is also very honest with me, very open, and we have this open dialogue. Maybe it takes a little longer than expected, but I am happy that we have ambitions that go beyond just fighting in the midfield pack. We want more than that, so we continue to sacrifice a lot just to get the updates. » The British team therefore seems to want to sacrifice its 2025 year to put all its efforts into 2026, which could see Williams return to the front positions before reaching the top in the following years.
Before that, the team must still prepare for 2025, which will mark a significant upheaval in the team with the arrival of Carlos Sainz.
