F1 News: Alex Albon "Confident" With Significant Williams Improvements

Alex Albon feels the team is capable of fighting Aston Martin and Ferrari.

Williams driver Alex Albon displayed excellent performance during the Dutch GP where he qualified in fourth place on the grid but secured eighth place on Sunday's Grand Prix, despite the FW-45 F1 car being best suited for faster tracks with long straights like Spa. This instilled a lot of confidence in the Thai-British driver, prompting him to say that the team was equal to Ferrari and Aston Martin at Zandvoort. 

Circuit Zandvoort has many corners and hence proves to be a disadvantage for cars such as the FW-45 but both Albon and his teammate Logan Sargeant managed to make it to the final round of qualifying for the first time in 2023. 

Albon describes just how quick his car was this weekend, falling just two seconds short of an Aston and a Ferrari while it overtook a Mercedes. He told GPBlog:

"I think we were on par with the Aston and Ferrari this weekend. If you actually think about it, we did that first stint and in the whole stint we lost maybe two seconds to the Aston and Ferrari. We were on 10 lap older tyres than they were. We were very strong. We overtook a Mercedes where we had a tyre advantage. To overtake a car around this track you need a good second and a half pace advantage to be able to do it. And we did it."

With the gain in pace, Albon seems all the more confident about the upcoming Italian GP at Monza - a track well suited for his car as it has many long straights. But a few recent learnings did add some confusion. He said:

"This gives me a lot of confidence going into Monza. At the same time it confuses me a little bit. We did a couple of set up things this weekend which worked but I think they only work in high downforce circuits. I don't think you can get away with them in low-downforce tracks. So it will be interesting. I think we'll take some learnings from this weekend and see what happens in Monza"