Alex Albon, Williams Formula 1 driver, claims that the team could not access full potential of its car. However, he is hopeful that there is much more to it than meets the eye.
Albon struggled with its overheated car at Bahrain GP and managed only to finish at 15th place. He improved his performance and finished 11th at the Saudi Arabian GP.
“Very simply, we’ve got a better car than last year,” he said. “But so does everyone else. And I’d say Haas in general has been a bit more of a surprise package, they are more competitive.
“We know where our weaknesses are and we know there’s lap time to find. We know where the lap time is. Hopefully within the next six or seven races we can start finding that performance, and out-develop our rivals.
“We know there’s a good chunk of time in the car. We can’t access it right now. It’s a bit of a shame, because I think at least today [in Saudi Arabia] especially there was a chance to score points. We can do it.
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“So let’s see for the next few races, hopefully we’re going to just chip away at it and get quicker and quicker.
“[It’s] not really how we want to start the season. I think we wanted a bit more than this, but it’s only the beginning, and we can fight back.”
Last year, Williams had a great speed advantage at straight line. It helped the team to put great performance on certain circuits gaining strong points for Albon. He also managed to hold faster cars behind himself.
The team adopted a strategy to provide a consistent car to its drivers. However, Albon revealed that it compromised the speed advantage.
“We don’t have the straight-line speed like last year,” he said. “So it’s actually really hard for us to overtake.
“I was quite surprised [in the Jeddah race], I had to do all my overtaking in the corners, which is not normal for me! It was interesting. When the DRS train was there, it was impossible.
“And once it broke up, and I could attack a non-DRS car, it was fine, I could get through the field. It is frustrating, because we had better race pace – our pace was not bad.”
