Alexander Albon talks about his crash in Baku and explains why Williams are likely to find things a bit tougher at the next race in Malaysia
Not much of note happened at the Formula 1 race in Baku on Sunday – until Alexander Albon crashed into the wall on lap 30, triggering a safety car period. “It was strange,” says the Williams driver, describing his crash at Turn 5, where he hit the wall head-on.
“I braked a bit later, but not much later,” he emphasises, explaining: “Then there was a strong gust of wind. I thought I’d drift a bit further out, but I never thought I’d crash into the barrier.”
We’ll have to look at the data now, says Albon, who admits that ultimately he must take responsibility for the crash. At the same time, however, he also stresses that his crash could be linked to a specific weakness in the Williams FW48.
“We’ve had these problems before. We know that our car tends to lift the front wheel. And sometimes, when that happens, the penalty for locking the front wheels on our car is enormous. It does happen,‘ said Albon.
’We know that we can end up ‘three-wheeling’ if we brake a little too late. If a gust of wind comes at the same time and we brake too late, that’s a bit too much,” he explained. That could at least have contributed to his crash.
Whilst Albon could only watch on afterwards, Carlos Sainz took advantage of the chaos following the safety car period triggered by his team-mate and eventually finished tenth. In doing so, he secured Williams’ first World Championship point since the race in Monaco in June.
Albon warns: We’ll “fall behind” in Malaysia
Earlier, the Spaniard had also made it into the top 10 in qualifying with the completely revamped Williams. “It’s exactly the step forward we were expecting,” says Albon of the Baku update, adding: “Perhaps we hadn’t expected to make it into Q3.”
“But it has put us in the mix in the midfield,” he emphasised. At the same time, however, Albon warned against overestimating the Baku result. After all, Sainz’s points haul was partly down to several retirements.
Furthermore, Albon stresses that Baku was, in any case, a good circuit for the Williams package. “Malaysia will show where we stand on a circuit where downforce is much more important,” he says with regard to the upcoming race.
“ “Looking at the bigger picture, we’ll make the car faster through optimisations [des Updates],” Albon announces. “But compared to the rest of the field, we’ll be slower, simply because this circuit doesn’t suit us, no matter how much we optimise the car.”
He therefore warns: “Expect us to fall back a bit in Malaysia.” In the final race of the current triple-header in Singapore, the team will likely find themselves somewhere between Baku and Sepang in terms of performance.
