Alexander Albon explains why Williams wants to keep P7 in the World Championship. The big focus has been on the 2024 Formula 1 season for months.
Williams goes into the 2023 Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi with a lead of seven points. The traditional team is still fighting for seventh place in the constructors’ world championship against AlphaTauri – and thus for around nine million US dollars.
This is the estimated difference between seventh and eighth place in terms of prize money distributed among the ten Formula 1 teams. And Alexander Albon explains that the fight against AlphaTauri is important primarily for these financial reasons.
“It will help the team, it will also accelerate the development of the team,” he emphasizes and reminds: “Dorilton is putting the money [in das Team]. And it would be beneficial for everyone if they had to invest a little less.”
“So we have a lot of ambition and want to finish this weekend in P7. That is clearly our top priority before the weekend,” explains Albon. At the same time, he also emphasizes that the team also wants to stay in P7 for sporting reasons.
Why Williams driver Albon is “very proud” of the season
Everyone in the team is a racer, it’s important to all of us where we finish,” he emphasizes and explains with a grin: “The path through the pit lane is a bit too long at the moment. And one position makes a difference.”
Because Williams took the last place in the World Championship in 2022, they will be at the back of the pit lane in 2023. That should change in 2024. But regardless of the outcome of the World Cup, Albon emphasizes that he is “very proud” of the current season.
“The car has improved a lot compared to last year,” he emphasizes and explains: “We go into every weekend with the feeling that we have the chance to score points.” He is particularly proud of the races “in which we scored points.”
Because even though we didn’t have good racing pace on some weekends, we still collected “good points”. “I think Melbourne was the only race where I felt like I missed an opportunity to get points,” said Albon.
In Melbourne he didn’t see the checkered flag after an accident. “But in every other race where we had a chance this year, we took advantage of it and I think that was the main difference to our rivals,” said Albon with satisfaction.
Albon: Williams will be even better in 2024
In this context, Albon also makes it clear that the last race in Las Vegas was not a missed opportunity – even though he and Logan Sargeant started the race from P5 and P6 but did not score any points in the end.
“I don’t think we missed a chance in Vegas. I don’t think there were really any points to be gained on Sunday,” he clarifies and explains that they were of course “hopeful” because it gave them a little “pressure.” from the Abu Dhabi weekend.
Because AlphaTauri didn’t score any points in Las Vegas either, Williams could have made a small preliminary decision in the fight for P7. By the way, if AlphaTauri actually passes, Albon could live with it in view of the bigger picture.
Because Williams stopped developing the current car months ago in order to fully concentrate on 2024. Therefore, regardless of the outcome of the World Cup, we are “pretty confident that we did the right thing,” emphasizes Albon.
“We’ve talked about it often enough, but we’ve stopped our development a long time ago,” he recalls, emphasizing: “I think we’ll be rewarded for it next year.” Of course, they would still like to take the additional millions for P7 in this year’s World Cup.