Albon hopeful ‘stars will align’ for Williams in chilly Las Vegas

Alex Albon is taking a contrarian view on this week’s Las Vegas GP, claiming that the blend of long straights and cool temperatures could potentially suit Williams’ FW45.

Current forecasts are calling for single-digit Celsius temperatures to prevail late in the evening in the Nevada desert when most of the Las Vegas GP’s sessions are scheduled to take place.

Although F1 has dealt with chilled environments in the past, especially during winter testing at Barcelona, the sum of all the unknowns facing the teams this week means everyone will be facing a new case study.

An F1 car running on a low energy layout and speeding down a long straight on a smooth tarmac amid cool temps isn’t the best setting for drivers to maintain efficient tyre temperatures. And many believe that this where the main challenge will reside for the teams’ engineers and drivers.

Yet Albon has reason to believe that Williams’ contender should fair well in Vegas’ low-downforce environment even despite the cool conditions.

"For Vegas, the stars should hopefully align," said the Anglo-Thai racer. "It's a track that should suit us in terms of its layout, but it should also suit us in terms of its temperature.

"So qualifying is going to be a real big interest I think for everyone to try to get the tyres to work in that temperature. That really won't be easy. But that suits us much more."

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Albon said that Las Vegas’ circuit was easy to learn on the simulator. However, he did note a sequence of corners where Williams' FW45 might be prone to front locking, a weakness embedded in Williams’ package this season.

"It's quite a simple circuit in terms of its layout, it's quite easy to learn," he said. "The track is quite interesting, there's quite a few combined corners, which are not easy for front-locking, which is not great for our car, but that's fine.

"The one thing which will be interesting is the roughness and the bumps of the track, how well of a job have they done or not.

"And also, I think in terms of racing, there's going to be a lot of overtakes, because at least from what I drove, there's a lot of opportunities, a lot of places you can overtake.

“So let's see, but it's okay. I actually didn't mind it."

Regarding the track’s overtaking opportunities, on second thought Albon caveated his claim, noting that straights preceded by slow corners – like in Mexico City – don’t always offer the best chance of outdoing a rival further down the road.

“In its layout, the straights are absolutely massive,” he addressed. “For example, Mexico, there should be more overtaking than there is. I mean, there is a massive straight.

“But the way that the Sector 3 is designed is not good for racing. And so it’s so hard to stay close out of the last corner.

“There’s one example of that in Vegas, where technically there should be an overtaking spot straight, but the corners before don’t allow you to say that close.

“Everyone thinks it’s the high-speed corners that it’s harder to stay close. And it’s not, it’s really the low-speed corners that we struggle to stay close, because the front end in these cars is so difficult, especially when the cars are so heavy.

“As soon as you lose the front in the low speed, you’re gone. But in Vegas, especially coming out of the last corner into Turn 1, it’s a corner that’s not that hard to stay close. So I think you’ll get quite a lot of overtaking.

“I hope it’s not too easy.”

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