The Hungarian Grand Prix has exposed the current difficulties faced by the Williams Formula 1 team, which was one of the few outfits to leave the Budapest race weekend without scoring any points. Alexander Albon provided insight into what went wrong during the race weekend at the Hungaroring circuit.
The British team seems to have lost the spark that occasionally lit up its performances last season and, at times, showed flashes of promise earlier this year. However, the Hungarian round turned out to be a complete misstep, with the Grove-based team failing to score and struggling throughout the event. Alexander Albon offered a detailed analysis of the situation after the race.
Between Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon, the most disappointed driver appeared to be the Thai-British competitor. At least the Spanish driver managed to progress into Q2 and came close to reaching Q3 during qualifying, while Albon started the race from the very back of the grid. The 1996-born driver admitted he found it challenging to adapt to the changing track conditions during the qualifying session.
During the race itself, there was hope that both Williams drivers could achieve a slightly better result, but in the end, the outcome was disappointing: Carlos Sainz finished in 14th position, while Alexander Albon crossed the finish line in 15th place. Williams therefore ended the Hungarian Grand Prix without points, just like the Haas and Alpine teams, who also failed to break into the top 10.
“I had a good start, probably the best one I’ve had all season, so I managed to gain a couple of positions,” Albon told the media, including the team from F1inGenerale. “I started on the soft tyres. The soft compound held up better than I expected and we seemed fairly competitive. We executed a great pit stop and managed to undercut the Haas car, but that’s where our race started to fall apart.”
He went on to explain: “I think Carlos Sainz exited the pits just ahead of me and I was on the medium tyres at that point. The medium compound did not work well for us. Looking back, I believe the hard tyres would have been a better race compound. Towards the end, I got stuck in a DRS train and there wasn’t much more I could do.”
Overall, Alexander Albon expressed disappointment with how the entire weekend unfolded. “I approached this race weekend feeling more optimistic, especially because I had the new update on the car, but unfortunately the pace we showed did not match our expectations. We struggled with tyre management during qualifying, and in the race we simply didn’t have enough performance.”
Albon also commented on the car’s aerodynamic setup and how it affected their performance in Hungary. “With the high-downforce rear wing setup, we don’t seem to be able to find the right balance that we usually manage with a medium or low-downforce configuration,” he explained. “That’s something we need to improve. But the reality is we have no further updates planned, so from now until the end of the season it’s going to be a bit of a fight. It’s shaping up to be one of those years where we’ll just need to hold on and do our best to survive until the final race.”
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