Albon expects sterner test for Williams in China

Alex Albon says predicts a tougher Chinese Grand Prix after his top-five finish in Australia, warning that Williams cannot expect to be picking up big point-scoring results with regularity.

Williams looked quick throughout the weekend in Melbourne and Albon qualified sixth with teammate Carlos Sainz also within the top 10. In wet and windy conditions, Albon went on to finish fifth, with the 10 points he picked up nearly matching his 2024 total of 12 and securing more than half of the team’s points total from last year, but he says similar results will be tough to achieve.

“Honestly, it was one of those really awkward races where it never felt comfortable,” Albon said. “The wind was gusting like crazy, the conditions were obviously so mixed. I wasn’t that confident in the race; it was more about making sure you don’t make mistakes and you knew the result was going to come at the end of it.

“There were moments in the race where I felt better and other moments, especially when the wind picked up, where I felt like relative to others I was losing performance. I think as a team we really executed everything we could. First race, it’s not easy to be dialed in, if you know what I mean, in terms of strategy and approach to the weekend.

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“We executed everything so well to get that. Just a fantastic start and it just shows we’ve made a huge step from last year. These results, they’re not going to come around very many times this year.

“We’ve talked a lot about capitalizing early internally within Williams, trying to make sure we take advantage of rookie drivers and things like that to get them points quickly. [In Melbourne] that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

China provides a new test during a Sprint event, and the weather forecast suggests a dry and settled weekend, but Albon is not expecting to be particularly competitive at the Shanghai International Circuit.

“Personally speaking, [I expect to be] less competitive. I think that it doesn’t suit our car quite as well,” he said. “I think Suzuka, we’ll be back competitive again but let’s wait and see. I think we still don’t truly understand our strengths and weaknesses so far.

“China was odd last year as well with the tarmac, if you remember. It was creating very random results. I think it has been resurfaced now, so a bit more comparative to the other tracks.

“I still think we are struggling relative to others in windy weather. Not to say China is always windy but it’s quite an exposed track.

“We know predominantly in history our car doesn’t like long corners. I think we’ve made a huge step in that area. Honestly, I’m interested to know if China will be a telltale sign if we’re going to be better or not, because China does have a lot of them.”