Alexander Albon had the best feel of the Williams car in F1 2024 so far in the last few laps of British GP, as Logan Sargeant felt strong in the grand prix.
Finally Williams had some joy at the end of F1 British GP after Albon managed to eke out two points from the grand prix. The Grove-based team were left behind in the last few races where Alpine and Haas made merry by scoring handful of points.
The start for Albon wasn’t a good one and it almost looked like his chance to score was gone after a tangle on Lap 1. It all started after Nico Hulkenberg went a bit wide which forced Fernando Alonso to avoid him, as a result of which the Thai made contact.
It was only marginal touch but that was not it. He then also made a slight touch against Yuki Tsunoda and teammate Sargeant to drop to 12th in the order. But the car did not have serious damage and during the pit stop, they re-jigged the balance to make it better.
After some help from the top cars dropping out, Albon passed Tsunoda to end up ninth as he felt the best in the Williams car in all of F1 2024 in the last few laps of the British GP. “I had contact in Turn 3, contact in Turn 4 and I was like ‘here we go’,” he said to media.
“I had a good launch, a relatively good launch but Fernando had an absolutely rocketship start and I kind of got boxed in into Turn 1 and then. I think Nico kind of got everyone slammed the brakes, we came out P12 after Lap 1 and it was a bit like okay…to be honest with you, it didn’t really matter too much, the race is going to come to us with the rain, there’s always a chance – there’s always like once the rain happens, the race is to come towards us.
“When it did rain, Nico bunched us up, we kind of played like a group and once we pitted for the inter, we could adjust the front wing to kind of re-balance some of the damage that we had from Lap 1 and then the car felt good from then on. So, the inter was okay, the car worked well in the final stint, we did a really good job with the strategy.
“We timed it right and we also went on the medium, I think a lot of the others went on soft if I am not mistaken. I think within the first two laps, I knew we were on the right tyre and could really push on that tyre, which looking at the soft, it had to be managed a bit. I am very happy, that was the last 6-7 laps of the race, that was the best the car felt all year.
“We need to understand why that is but yeah, it was quite fun. It was a race where like always…around this track we need to understand why it feels more towards our car than the others. We had true pace this weekend, I think that was a big difference to previous weekends, where we just did the quickest strategy than try and find a way to be optimistic.
“We had a very strong race run on Friday and honestly during most of that race, I felt like I couldn’t really show my true pace, I was kind of stuck in the group in the beginning and then on the inters as well. In some ways, I actually think that we could have finished even a bit further up but I’ll take this up,” summed up Albon.
It was not just the Thai who had a sounding, his teammate Sargeant ended up 11th to move the standings after a solid run from his end too. The American managed to clear Kevin Magnussen in the latter stages and was in chase of Tsunoda for 10th.
But he had to settle for 11th after a positive run. He admits that the cars dropping out helped them, but the pace wasn’t too bad still. “It was a good race in general to be honest, I feel like we moved the car in much better direction than where it was in FP2 in high fuel and I feel like I executed the race pretty well considering all the changing conditions, keeping it together, really didn’t make any mistakes,” said Sargeant.
“I feel like when it was dry, we had a really good pace. The only time I really felt weak was when we were on the inter tyre in drying track, I just feel like we were degrading the left side tyres too much and ultimately, it cost us too much time. Yeah, it stacks up, obviously, it hurts a little bit for me but nonetheless, I drove well, I think we had really good pace in a lot of places in the race but a little bit we could have still done better.
“Obviously, yes and no I think. Yes in the sense that in the race, two really good guys on the top going out, that gave us the chance. Had they not gone out then neither would have scored points. You got to take things as they come. We can’t be disappointed with the way we executed the race.
“You can always look back in hindsight that we should have boxed a lap earlier for the inter, we should box the lap earlier for the slicks – that is always a tricky decision at that moment. Most importantly the pace was there all weekend and I am happy with that. Regarding early radio about Alex, it was more like it was feedback for the team, make sure his car was all right.
“You never know how many points you can lose if anything like that happens, so it was more just a message for them. I think we were really similar pace at that point, if I had that much extra, I would have had a chance to overtake him but I couldn’t get close enough.
“I think that was our pace and at that point of the race, I could see he was closing on Yuki slightly, it was a good time to manage tyres, the rain was coming, so we were going to extend that stint, so there was really no point in overtaking at that point, nonetheless, I had pace, the pace was good. I am happy,” summed up Sargeant, who was pretty pleased with his drive amid rumours about him certainly getting dropped and potentially looking at future outside F1 in IndyCar.
“I was very happy with my qualifying considering I didn’t do FP1 and ultimately I had only three fast laps from FP2 going into qualifying, I was happy the way I was able to really get on it quickly, and in the race, I had the pace,” he said. “I can for sure take positives from that, I think it has been tricky at times this season but I have been biding my time, I have been driving well, waiting for opportunities to show.
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