George Russell says Alexander Albon has done an “exceptional job” at Williams across the opening stages of the 2022 season.
Albon returned to Formula 1 with Williams this year, having sat out the 2021 campaign following stints with Toro Rosso and Red Bull.
The Williams FW44 car is widely accepted as the slowest car in the field, however in the first seven races of the campaign, Albon has delivered points results for the Grove-based squad in Australia and Miami.
Albon took over the seat occupied by Russell at Williams, as the 2018 Formula 2 Champion made the switch to Mercedes.
Russell has hailed Albon’s performances after the difficulties he endured at Red Bull.
“Alex has done an exceptional job,” he said. “I think there was obviously no secret he had a tough time that Red Bull, but I think all of us, even probably Max included, just knew how talented Alex was.
“And, you know, we’ve, as I said, we’ve all raced each other since 2011. Alex was a few years older than us.
“So he was sort of competing against [Nyck] de Vries at the time, in KF1, I remember and he’s always been there, you know.
“He’s always been one of the very best, so it’s no surprise to me, and I think happy to see that he’s back in Formula 1, and that he has cemented his position.”
Nicholas Latifi, who is Albon’s current team-mate at Williams, also raced alongside the Thai-British driver at DAMS’ Formula 2 squad in 2018.
Speaking about the similarities between Russell and Albon, Latifi said: “I think it goes without saying they’re both very, extremely quick drivers.
“And I mean, especially when Alex was announced as the race driver that was going to be my team-mate, I had no illusions that he was not going to be on the pace straight away, despite him missing out a year.
“Obviously, I raced against him in 2018, or I raced as his team-mate in 2018, and I know just how quick he was.
“So I think in many ways, the similarities, there are obviously some little differences in driving style here and there, which I kind of knew going into the season as well, just from, again, having been team-mates with Alex beforehand.
“I won’t say the driving style secrets because maybe they don’t want to disclose that. But it’s been great having both of them as team-mates.”
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