Pirelli hails Alex Albon as the Williams driver achieves massive feat in Australia
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Alex Albon
During the return of the Australian GP, which no longer is the season opener, we witnessed an interesting strategy by the Williams driver Alex Albon. The driver, using this strategy, bagged the first point of the season for Williams only in the third round, for which they had to wait for 11 races in the 2021 season.
Albon drove for 57 laps of the total 58 on a single set of Hard tires and only pitted for Mediums on the last lap. This is something that Pirelli’s F1 program head Mario Isola believes is a feat not seen in the last 12 years. He, as quoted by Planet F1, said, “This is the first time in 12 years I have seen a strategy like this, where a car runs from the start on the same set of tyres for the entire race. A remarkable approach.”
The only reason Albon pitted in the final lap was the regulation that makes it mandatory for the drivers to use at least two different types of compounds during a race. The last lap pit also saw him drop from P7 to P10, thus winning him only a single yet crucial point.
Will other teams try to replicate Alex Albon’s strategy?
Speaking if the teams can replicate the Williams’ strategy, Isola said, “It depends on the load on the tyre, and the Safety Car helped of course. Williams were able to make the best use of the tyre with good speed. This is important information.”
He concluded by saying, “With the lower temperature of the tyre-warmers and this new range of compounds, tyre heating is a potential problem. Also, the first laps after a Safety Car restart are more difficult because you have to warm up the tyre in the right way. This is really quite remarkable. I’m still scratching my head as to how this is possible!”
Pirelli claims that the tires made for the 2022 cars are made of entirely different compounds than the 2021 tires. This also means that the data collected in the past could only be of little help for the teams, so replication will come at pure risk during that particular weekend.
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