It’s a really good opportunity for teams to bounce back,” Alex Albon optimistic after seeing progress at Williams
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Williams Racing's Thai racing driver Alex Albon
Alex Albon has recently admitted that the new 2022 rules can help the Williams team in making ground to the top teams pretty quickly and that now no one has to worry about getting stuck at the back end of the grid.
Alex Albon feels that the new rules have come as a blessing to the sport and are going to allow everyone to show their hand and make the sport more competitive.
The cars for the 2022 F1 season are ground-effect machines that were designed to support close-quarters racing and with the budget cap that F1 has introduced, things are bound to get tight between the various teams in the upcoming seasons.
If this was not enough, F1 has also introduced wind tunnel and CFD (computational fluid dynamics) time, according to which the top teams get fewer hours as compared to those at the bottom of the pack.
The 2022 rules are going to stick around for next season with minor tweaks and Albon is optimistic that his team can propel itself up the grid next season. The 26-year-old while talking about the prospect said, “The way I see it now is that [the rest of the season is] a really good opportunity for teams to bounce back [and] make up round 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.”
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Alex Albon believes Williams F1 team has a clear direction for the 2023 season
“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?”
The Thai-British driver is optimistic about scoring points on a regular basis in the remaining races of the 2022 season and feels that 2023 is going to be the year where Williams is going to make a huge step forward.
Moreover, Albon has recently signed a multi-year deal with the team and is relishing the challenge that the Williams livery is offering this season.
Albon has been a happy chap ever since signing with Williams this season and has said, “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, mature.”
Jost Capito the Williams Team Principal has showered Albon with high praise this season and the 26-year-old feels that the team has started relying on him more as compared to Nicholas Latifi.
Albon has further added, “I feel the team relies 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 in the future. A lot of that is the feedback I give to the team and I know how a championship-winning team does 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.”
Alex Albon wants to see progress at Williams and after looking at what he has said about the direction that the team is heading into, one thing is for certain, the Wantage-based team is willing to do everything in their power to make sure they are at least in the midfield conversation next season.
The second leg of the 2022 F1 season is getting underway on the 26h of August and with only 9 races remaining in the season, it could be a very good opportunity for Williams to try out new things and learn as much as possible so that they can develop a better car for next season.
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)