After difficult qualifying, Alexander Albon came back with a convincing performance in the Monza race.
“It was a bit like in Zandvoort,” he says after the Italy Grand Prix, which he ended as a seventh. “We qualify out of position and make it difficult, but as soon as we have clean air, we can drive our own races – and the pace was strong.”
Albon had mainly been annoyed to stand far back on Saturday. Already in Q2 there was an end to both Williams. “This is actually the real pace of the car that we saw in the race. So it was so disappointing to land in qualifying.”
Tires remain the key topic
Once again, dealing with the tires was crucial. Albon makes it clear that a pattern emerges: “There are now three races in a row in which qualifying really did not go well. Every time it was due to the tire temperature. It gets almost worse, so we urgently have to solve it.”
It works better in the race itself: “As soon as the tires are in the window, they remain stable. Then we are quick – that’s the story of the year. But we just can’t call it up in qualifying.”
Particularly annoying: The problems also occurred in training: “We tried to simulate difficult outlaps, but never get the right feeling. In the end I didn’t know what could come from the car and what from the tire.”
Team duel with Sainz: cleanly regulated
Albon also had to be patient in a duel with teammate Carlos Sainz. He initially lost time behind the Spaniard before the team leadership decided to exchange the positions. “It was actually not necessary to change something from the start, but when Carlos had free air, he was quick. I was still faster on the hard tires,” explains Albon.
“When I was allowed to go, it was half a second faster. In the end, we handled it well as a team.” Sainz himself later confirmed that he initially hesitated: “I wanted to understand the big picture first. But after it was explained to me, I let him past.”
Short moment of shock in duel
An incident caused an incident with Andrea Kimi Antonelli when Albon attacked the medium. “I hoped he left me – he didn’t do it, but it was fine,” laughs the Williams pilot. “We had so much pace, I had to pass quickly. We touched something, but it was clean.”
As much as Albon enjoyed the catch -up in Monza, he remains self -critical. “The racing car was as fast as Ferrari and Mercedes at times. But we only put the car back in the race where it actually belongs,” he explains.
With a view to the next Grands Prix – Baku and later Mexico – he raises the alarm: “There are routes that are extremely difficult to get the tires into the window. We have to solve this. We cannot always hope to catch up on Sundays.”