Alex Albon’s early pace in practice in Mexico offered the promise of a strong display on race day, but the Williams driver believes that Sunday’s high temperatures weighed heavily on the FW45’s performance.
Albon hit the ground running in Friday’s FP1 in which he achieved the second fastest lap behind future race winner Max Verstappen.
He was unable to repeat his strong performance in the hotter afternoon FP2 session but on Saturday the Williams was once again snapping at Verstappen’s heels.
But qualifying yielded a disappointing P14 on Sunday’s grid as a track limit infringement led to his final flyer in Q2 being deleted.
Albon was nevertheless able to put together a solid race that saw him run as high as P7 in the two-part event that was halted on lap 34 of 71 by a red flag triggered by Kevin Magnussen’s heavy crash.
On the restart, Albon settled into ninth position where he stayed for the remainder of the race. But overall, the Williams was a tad disappointed by his car’s pace and reckoned that track temperatures reaching a high of 52°C had once again weighed on his performance.
“I was surprised, the pace today was not that strong,” he said.
“I think a lot of that comes down to temperature. The track was hot and just like qualifying and FP2, we struggle when the track gets hot so there was a lot of management in the race.
©Williams
“I was having to manage too much to make the tyres last and that was affecting the lap time.
“We know we have quite a sensitive car. We slide around a little bit more than others so when it gets hot, it creates a bit more temperature and it was the same in the race.”
Albon considered that in relative terms, Williams had acquitted itself rather well in the race against its rivals who all struggled to manage their tyres and brake temperatures in the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez’s overheated environment.
“The race was a bit easier because everyone is managing,” he explained.
“Obviously in a short run if you’re managing you’re just going to be slow. We had the same problems as qualifying but we made it work.”
With drivers facing two standings starts over the course of the afternoon, there was twice as much risk of getting it wrong.
But in both cases, Albon enjoyed a good launch off the grid, which he believes went a long way towards ensuring his spot among the top ten.
“What was important was the starts,” he said. “We had two very good starts and I think that was the secret for points.
“I don’t think if we weren’t able to get past at the starts we would be able to get points so I’m very happy.”
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