Williams is aiming to turn Alex Albon’s recent struggles into an opportunity for improvement, using data from Carlos Sainz Jr.’s car to help the Anglo-Thai racer Albon find a more consistent footing in the FW47.
Albon currently sits 8th in F1’s Drivers’ standings, leading the midfield charge, but a string of difficult weekends has stalled the 29-year-old’s momentum, with a sixth place finish in Austin’s Sprint event his only points haul in the last four races.
Albon’s difficulties were compounded in Mexico, where he was eliminated in Q1 for the second consecutive race, leaving the Williams garage scrambling for solutions.
Team principal James Vowles admitted the team had been “on the back foot” but stressed they had learned valuable lessons at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
“That weekend, we weren’t there in terms of getting the tyres absolutely where they’re nailed to be,” Vowles said in a video released by the team.
“And I don’t think we were quite right on the set-up as well – the correspondence between basic car set-up and how we use our differential and other tools as well.”
Turning Setbacks into Strategy
Rather than seeing the weekend as a failure, Vowles highlighted how the information gathered from Sainz’s car could help Albon moving forward.
“Irrespective, what it has given us is a good pathway for what we can be doing in Brazil and going forward. So through failure, I think actually we found a pathway on how to operate the car with a combination of Carlos and Alex’s data,” he explained.
The Williams chief admitted the FW47 hasn’t been fully cohesive for Albon, citing a mix of minor issues that, when combined, have affected performance.
“We haven’t had the car quite together,” Vowles said. “We had small little issues that have all been adding up, and not quite being there on tyre temperatures in Mexico. Now, we will bring that together. There’s quite a bit of learning lessons [we’ve done].”
Developping a Consistent Platform
The central challenge, Vowles stressed, is providing Albon with a car that’s easier to drive, even if it isn’t the absolute fastest on paper. By aligning the FW47 more closely with Sainz’s setup philosophy, Williams hopes to offer Albon a stable foundation for the remaining races.
“There’s a set-up direction that we now know we need to be taking from Brazil onwards, which is more similar to where Carlos is, but it’s just making sure the car’s more together for him,” Vowles explained.
“So it’s a good platform to build from. Perhaps it’s not the fastest car to the millisecond, but a consistent platform to work from.”
With four races left in the season, Williams is banking on this strategic shift to help Albon reclaim the form that made him the midfield’s leading points scorer.
By blending lessons and data from both drivers’ cars, the team hopes to turn incremental improvements into meaningful gains – giving Albon a more predictable, reliable FW47 and keeping him firmly atop F1’s midfield.
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