After a long winter break Formula 1 is up and running again for the very first event of 2025, and it’s looking promising for Williams Racing, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz ahead of the F1 Australian GP.
After losing the spot to Covid first and then to Bahrain for the past 3 years Melbourne is taking its place back as the season opener.
A jump to the past
Albert Park certainly holds special memories for Alex Albon, who back in 2019 was a rookie ready to make his Formula 1 debut behind the wheel of the then Toro Rosso.
From Toro Rosso to Red Bull, some time off and then the call to Williams where he has become a consistent driver despite the struggles of the team, certainly a lot has changed since then for Alex Albon.
But is he happy to see the Australian GP back at the start of the calendar?
“Yeah, it’s great. I don’t think any other driver would disagree with that,” he said in his print media session.
“It’s great to have an atmosphere for the first race. Not to say Bahrain wasn’t, but you can feel the energy in the city and even walking in here. It’s great to be back racing in Melbourne as the first racer. What is the contract? Is it here for a while?”
Quite a while, as the current contract ties the circuit with F1 until 2035.
Over the last few years the promoters have made significant investments to upgrade the circuit, including Turn 6.
It was there last year George Russell, and Albon in 2023, had crashes that raised concern, the kerbs have now been adjusted to provide better stability as the cars go through the corner.
“The track is fantastic as well, not just the city,” he commented.
“But the changes they’ve made since my first time being here, it’s really opened it up for better racing, for driving-wise as well. Luckily they’ve re-profiled the turn 6 curve for me, so it should be okay.”
New sponsor, better equipment for Williams, says Albon
The last few years Williams has struggled quite a bit on resources, often coming to the races without the expected spare parts.
Ultimately last season, here at Albert Park they had to retire Logan Sargeant and only compete with one car as they had no spare chassis after Albon’s crash. 9th in the championship left a sour taste for the team, even if they are focusing on the medium to long-term.
This year, however, Williams has signed a record-breaking title sponsorship with tech firm Atlassian and by the looks of it things are already starting to look brighter for the team.
“I would say we are definitely better prepared. Yes, the car is on weight, we’ve got all the parts to go racing and spare parts on top of that,” assured Albon.
“Nothing on the car this weekend that we had to compromise, which I can say wasn’t the case last year. So yeah, we still need to be careful. That being said, we still need to make sure we don’t get into unnecessary crashes, but we are in a much stronger position.”
Growing optimism
The main problem for Williams last season seemed to be not as much related to the pace as much as the drivability and the numerous heating and electrical issues coming up throught the weekends, as Albon explained.
“I think in the simulator the lap times were quicker, but I think one thing which you don’t always factor in is the drivability around the car as well, the predictability about the car.”
“I think last year the car could catch us out quite often and you saw that maybe it reflected a little bit in some of the instances we had.”
In the pre-season testing in Bahrain the FW47 certainly caught the eye, impressing everyone especially when on Day 2 Carlos Sainz topped the times.
Surely we are not even at the beginning yet, but the first signs finally seem to be good down in Grove.
“It’s very early days, Bahrain was very windy, track temp was going up and down very quickly as well. So there’s another factor on top of that. It’s not just pure lap times sometimes and it can come in different ways.
“So that’s kind of where that growing confidence in the car is coming from.
“Obviously, we’ve done a few changes this year to explore the concepts of the car, these floor cars, let’s say, and whatever we learn this year is going into next year. It’s good that we are, I think, heading in the right direction.”
