James Vowles appreciates Alex Albon’s racing at the Canadian GP, calls it a “drive of champions”
James Vowles reveals how Alexander Albon kept his cool through the corners in Canada even though essential information on his Williams' tyre temperatures were missing due to a technical glitch.
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Alex Albon had he managed to pull off a one-stop strategy and secure the seventh position for Williams at the Canadian Grand Prix after Qualifying ninth. The Thai-British driver had a fantastic race in Montreal, finishing within the points while maintaining a constant distance in front of Esteban Ocon’s charging Alpine. But James Vowles, the head of the Williams team, has disclosed a problem that they encountered with Alex Albon’s racecar in Montreal. While Albon’s P7 finish in itself is because of his excellent drive, things now seem more spectacular given that he got his highest race finish for Williams while tackling a technical problem.
Vowles reportedly spoke about how the Williams of Alex Albon had a sensor malfunction, and he also elaborated that their crew were unaware of the external tire temperatures throughout the race. Since they intended to use the hard tires for a lengthy period of time, the Williams crew were paralysed without the information about the tire temperatures.
The Williams leader said, “There was an issue which didn’t affect reliability, but definitely affected performance and data. We have sensors pointing at the rear tires, which tell what’s happening. They are infrared sensors, therefore contactless, but they basically tell us what the temperature of the rear tires is“. James Vowles insisted sensors still had the internal temperature of the tires, but the external one was missing. His team tried to solve the problem on the grid in the short period of time available, unfortunately without success.
With Alex Albon’s brilliant P7 in Canada, Williams moves up the ranks to tenth place above AlphaTauri
Speaking on how James Vowles and his crew at Williams operated with their paralysis of not having the proper data on Alex Albon’s external tyre temperatures, the Briton revealed, “We knew the life would just about be possible on that hard tyre from then onwards and what we did is, from that point on, was still open-minded to converting to a two-stop, but the situation never really appeared for us to do so. But as it turns out, we were on the right strategy and Alex did really a tremendous job. [It] was really a drive of champions. To make no mistake, when you have a stack of cars behind you that are clearly much quicker, with your tyres going away from you, is an extraordinary drive and he did incredibly well with it.”
Alex Albon’s outstanding performance at the Canadian GP is shown by the fact that he raced 58 laps on hard tyres despite being unaware of key information about them.The outcome has moved Williams up to the tenth place in the constructors’ championship, above AlphaTauri. Williams’ chief James Vowles said that the Grove-based team lacked the pure speed to merit a spot in seventh, but he commended their racing strategy aided in achieving the position.
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Riddhi Mondal
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