Alex Albon believes that Williams’ 2024 Formula 1 challenger, the FW46, has “definitely” cut out the flaws that plagued its predecessor.
The 2023 FW45 was considered a potent machine in low-drag conditions and gave Albon a platform to defend points-paying positions in venues such as Montreal and Monza.
However, the car wasn’t without its vices and was tricky to handle in more complex, technical circuit configurations.
But the Thai-Anglo driver believes that the FW46 has ironed out the kinks over the offseason and gave evidence of that after the 2024 season-opener in Bahrain.
“If you look at Turn 9, Turn 10 last year [in Bahrain], worst corner by a lot in the race and in qualifying” Albon said during media day in Saudi Arabia last week.
“This year, actually, Turn 9 and 10 were very strong.
“We had some issues with some other corners which is a consequence of making corners like Turn 9, Turn 10 better. We need to try and improve these areas.
“There’s some clear things on the car which we don’t like. Upgrades should bring it together. For now, though, there’s still a lot of setup to explore.
“We spent a lot of Friday exploring during Bahrain, and we had to come back a bit for Saturday, back to how it was in the test.”
Williams has failed to pick up a point so far after the opening two rounds of the season, thanks partly due to the top teams all finishing the race and occupying the top-10 spots in Bahrain and also due to Haas’ defensive tactics in Saudi Arabia.
A clear pecking order has yet to emerge amongst the likes of Haas, RB and Williams, who all look poised to fight for places sixth through eighth in this year’s Constructors’ Championship.
The overwhelming verdict following the first two races of the season is that there appears to be a gulf between the top five teams (Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin) and the remainder of the grid, with Haas the only member of the bottom half to have picked up a point.
Still, for Albon, the focus is learning as much as possible about the FW46 and points toward the coming races being key in that exercise as the Grove-based outfit look to build on a positive campaign in 2023 which saw it achieve its best Constructors’ result (seventh) since 2017.
“That search for trying to get through that, through corner balance better, that’s going to be, I think, a big talking point for us, in the next kind of four or five races as we just try to learn the car we’ve got,” he said.
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