Alex Albon Opens Up On 2024 Season Frustrations Amid 'Combination' Of Problems

Despite persistent car issues, particularly the overweight condition, Alex Albon reveals significant frustrations over missed opportunities and setbacks in the 2024 F1 season.

Nov 18, 2023; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Williams Racing driver Alexander Albon of Thailand (23) during the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports / Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports

Alex Albon has revealed significant frustrations due to the series of mishaps and inherent car issues, particularly the persistent overweight of the Williams FW46, which has clearly hampered their performance so far this season

During an interview with Racing News 365, the Thai driver commented:

“We've grown up on results, we're wired to think about results.

“So I'd say at the beginning of the year when results weren't coming our way, it was a little bit of like wind out of your system and ‘okay, we're not where we want to be’.

“But it was more of a frustrating thing because when I looked at our results, I looked at Bahrain, Jeddah, Miami. and I looked at where we could have been if the weight was out of the car.

“It wasn't like we came into the season, changed all these things and got a car that's on weight and slow.

“It was more like, we've done the right things and we can see where we should be. If everything went right and executed properly, we would have been far more into the points.”

Despite these setbacks, Albon remains balanced in his critique, acknowledging a combination of team-related and driver-related issues, including several mishaps such as crashes in Australia and Japan which further delayed potential car upgrades.

“Likewise, I think our upgrades would have come in earlier, we had our crashes as well,” Albon said. 

“It’s not totally on the team, it's also driver-related - but in combination, everything would have been a bit greener.

“I was kind of in a bit of a ‘I wish we were there’ [mindset] but at least I see that there is performance there, we have made gains. It’s just not as obvious.”

Albon continued:

“Weight is such a nice thing because it's such a guaranteed result rather than an update which has its pros and cons."

2024 F1 Driver Standings As Of Summer Break

1. Max Verstappen - 277 points
2. Lando Norris - 199 points
3. Charles Leclerc - 177 points
4. Oscar Piastri - 167 points
5. Carlos Sainz - 162 points
6. Lewis Hamilton - 150 points
7. Sergio Perez - 131 points
8. George Russell - 116 points
9. Fernando Alonso - 49 points
10. Lance Stroll - 24 points
11. Nico Hulkenberg - 22 points
12. Yuki Tsunoda - 22 points
13. Daniel Ricciardo - 12 points
14. Oliver Bearman - 6 points
15. Pierre Gasly - 6 points
16. Kevin Magnussen - 5 points
17. Esteban Ocon - 5 points
18. Alex Albon - 4 points
19. Zhou Guanyu - 0 points
20. Logan Sargeant - 0 points
21. Valtteri Bottas - 0 points