Alexander Albon draws a positive conclusion from the season opener and does not see Miami as an outlier, but without updates, Williams could now fall behind
In Miami, Williams was even able to keep up with Ferrari and thus successfully conclude a strong start to the season, but with the start of the European season, Williams could pay the price for wanting to focus entirely on development for 2026. Because now is the time for upgrades.
“It’s definitely going to be intense,” believes Alexander Albon, who finished a strong fifth in Miami and is eighth in the drivers’ standings with 30 points. “You’ll probably see bigger performance leaps when the teams bring their updates to the car.”
“But at the same time, we have three very different tracks ahead of us – Imola, Monaco, and Barcelona – so we’re going from low downforce to a street circuit to high downforce. There will be ups and downs in the midfield,” he said.
Williams will continue to fight in the midfield and wants to remain the best of the rest. However, “I think there will definitely be a few comebacks from teams that are currently behind us,” fears the Thai driver.
Is Williams now falling behind?
Because there is not much to expect from Williams at the moment. The team has repeatedly emphasized that its priorities are not on 2025, but already on the new regulations for next year.
Albon describes the improvements that will be made to his car as “minimal.” “To be honest, we are currently more concerned with better understanding the package of our car,” he says. “With every race, we’ve refined the setup and got to know the car better and better. That’s been the main source of our performance this year so far.”
Williams is currently fifth in the championship with 37 points and has already collected more points than at the end of the last seven seasons.
Season start maximized
“Looking at the season so far, we’ve been one of the teams that has maximized its points,” Albon praised, seeing only Bahrain as a missed opportunity. Otherwise, however, he said the team had made hardly any mistakes.
“There were very challenging conditions – like in Melbourne. And of course, the sprint race in Miami was a bitter setback for us. But when I look at how other teams have started the season, I think: Sure, we want to improve and we need to improve – but as an organization, we’ve done a decent job so far.”
The highlight was Miami, where Albon initially finished fourth in the sprint but was relegated due to a safety car infringement before finishing fifth in the race. “Miami was something special,” he says. “I think we really had the pace of Ferrari, we were on the level of Mercedes.”
Albon insists that this was not a fluke and sees other tracks where Williams could look good. The only question is how much progress the competition will make in the coming weeks. Because, as we all know, standing still is a step backwards in Formula 1.