Alex Albon endured a rough time at the 2026 F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP last weekend, as the Thai driver spent a few laps in the Williams garage as the mechanics tried to sort out a loose TV camera over the roll-hoop of his FW48.
Albon says loose camera “didn’t change much” the outcome of his Barcelona-Catalunya F1 GP
Speaking in the print media pen after the race last weekend, the 30-year-old explained how the team turned his race into a “testing session” due to losing 10 laps whilst they tried to fix the loose onboard camera, which is a mandatory element if the car is to run on the circuit.
However, the Thai wasn’t too optimistic of scoring points either way, as he revealed there was an issue with his car in the right-handers, which he believes had been hampering his performance since qualifying:
“It was above my head, so I didn’t see [the loose camera],” he said. “But it totally didn’t change too much.
“After that we were like, ‘we’re not going to score points, so we might as well turn it into a testing session’. Which we’ve done a fair few times this year already.
“But I think we’ve seen there was an issue with the car after qualifying. So we couldn’t change it due to parc fermé. [So] we used that time in the garage, we couldn’t correct it, but we could kind of fudge it to get back to what it should be.”
Albon: Mechanical issue with the car cost real chance at points
Although he wasn’t drown into giving too many details, Albon revealed there was an unspecified “mechanical issue” with his Williams F1 car ever since qualifying, and believes that it cost him a lot of performance in right-hand corners and quick directio changes from left to right, like turns seven and eight at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
“Yeah, we need to understand it. We can see the car’s not behaving on left to right, and we need to fix it.
“I mean it explains maybe why [in qualifying] I was [struggling]. I didn’t know what car I had left to right, I wanted to go and I didn’t know what the car was going to do.
“Maybe it gives a little bit of comfort to know something [was wrong], but at the same time… I just want to make sure it’s not there for Austria.”
Reliability in 2026 is “not just about the PU’s”
With the introduction of the all-new cars and engines for the 2026 F1 season, there’s been a fair share of well-documented reliability issues for several manufacturers, most notably the struggles of class-leading Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, which had multiple failures over the course of the season.
But the Thai driver, who is currently 15th in the drivers’ championship, is adamant that it’s not just the power units that can cuase trouble in terms of reliability in 2026, and has indicated that chassis issues are still cropping up and the team is working hard to make sure the car parts are “doing what they’re meant to” even at this somehwat advanced stage of the season:
“I think the cars are so new, and we’re realising it’s not just about reliability in terms of PU’s – there’s also reliability behind the scenes that the cars are experiencing too.
“We’re kind of going through a bit of a process of making sure the parts in the car are doing what they’re meant to do, so it’s part of it.
“I wouldn’t call it bad. We’re just going to get better at it and do a better job at it
Albon: Prospect of high-speed sections in Austria challenges Williams’ weak point as much as Barcelona-Catalunya GP circuit
When asked if the upcoming Austrian GP brings a better oportunity for Williams to showcase its true potential and rejoin the fight for points in the midfield after its adrift weekend at the Barcelona-Catalunya GP, Albon said he believes it could be better, but is wary that the high-speed corners of sector two and the final sector will expose Williams’ major deficit of the season so far.
He also made it clear that the gap to the top of the midfield was as much as a second-and-a-half in qualifying for the last race, outlining just how much of a steep climb it will be for the Grove-based squad to join that fight in Spielberg.
“[Austria should be] better, but if you look at our high speed, compared to our midfield rivals, we’re a good chunk off.
“Obviously, when we’re in sector two, sector three, it’s all high speed. So we need to see what we do.
“[And] don’t forget, I think we’ve qualified as lowly… I think Carlos [Sainz] qualified 1.5s off [Liam] Lawson [in Spain], so we’ve got some work to do.”
