Alexander Albon is threatened with another difficult season, because the Williams driver fears that his team could again be the slowest on the entire grid: “I’m maybe a bit more pessimistic than optimistic, but I think that at least based on the first impressions of the Test drives are the tenth fastest team,” says the Thai before the Formula 1 season opener in Bahrain.
The traditional racing team from Grove has been used to the last place in the Constructors’ World Championship in recent years: since 2018, the team has finished tenth in the World Championship four times, only in 2021 there was a small upward trend with eighth place, but there were also happy runs in Hungary and Belgium was owed.
Under the new 2022 regulations, you had landed at the bottom again and could stay there for the time being: “You have to be realistic,” says Albon. “We’ve definitely built a better car, but when it comes to pace, everyone has it, so it’s all relative.”
Williams scored a total of eight points last year, and like back then, the team will probably have to hope that something will happen up front in 2023 in order to have a chance of scoring a point. “It’s not going to be easy, and something definitely needs to happen for that to happen,” Albon said.
For the start in Bahrain, the principle of hope applies: “If I look at the test, then at least we were very reliable. And in the first race of the year there are always a few reliability problems, and hopefully we can benefit from them.”
“But in terms of sheer pace, a lot of teams have made big strides,” he adds. “Compared to our direct rivals, possibly AlphaTauri and McLaren, I think we’re a bit further behind.”
Williams had quite a upheaval over the winter. Not only Nicholas Latifi left the team and was replaced by rookie Logan Sargeant, team boss Jost Capito and technical director Francois-Xavier Demaison are no longer on board. Instead, the former Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles is now in charge of the racing team.
However, he has no previous experience as team boss in this role and was only able to take up his post shortly before the test drives. In addition, it will probably take time for a new technical structure to be created and integrated.
“Obviously we’re still without a chief engineer, but we need to see progress in the areas where we feel limited in terms of driving,” says Albon of the new FW45. “And if we see the progress then we’re definitely going in the right direction. We’ve already made a step but we need to see more of it.”