Albon hopes Williams can focus on upgrades with spare chassis

Alex Albon hopes Williams can begin to focus on bringing updates to its 2024 Formula 1 car amid the long-awaited arrival of a spare chassis at the Miami Grand Prix.

Williams entered the season on the back foot as the choice to overhaul its car concept to eradicate previous weaknesses resulted in the team cutting deadlines tight.

Having combated the first four rounds without a third chassis available, Albon’s practice shunt in Australia witnessed team-mate Logan Sargeant put on the sidelines.

However, speaking to media including Motorsport Week, Albon revealed that the Grove-based squad will have a spare tub coming to Miami at some point this weekend.

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“Not here right now, but will be here,” he said.

“Truthfully it doesn’t really change anything, hasn’t since the start of the year, I still drive it the same but nice to know there is a bit of a safety net for any moments.

It’s been a lot of effort from the team, it feels like we’ve been playing catch up for most of the year, now with the chassis things are becoming a little bit more settled.

“Hopefully we can really start focusing more on updates and general developments of the car.”

Asked whether it provided him with relief that Williams now had a spare chassis, Albon conceded that he had allowed that fact to be a distraction to him on the track.

“It sounds bad of me to say but I don’t. I don’t think about it,” he answered.

“I think I’ve said it before but if you start thinking about it you’re already kind of at a loss. You can’t let it forget your weekend.”

However, the Anglo-Thai driver did admit that it would come at a vital time with two races to deal with at the Miami International Autodrome due to the Sprint format.

“We’ve had a few Sprint races early in the season,” Albon acknowledged.

“You go to more and more street races now and quite condensed street tracks thinking about Jeddah, Melbourne, here.

“There is an emphasis more than ever I think to have a third chassis for the start of the year.

Albon also highlighted that the intense work to construct another chassis at base had hampered Williams from participating in the ever-evolving F1 development race.

“It’s more of a way to get everything in order and focus on development of the car because we have been delayed, things have not come onto the car already that should have,” he assessed.

“This week we have a couple of very little things, next week some more things, so our chase to get back into the midfield five.

“If you look at the results recently we’ve kind of started to fall away from the Haas, the RB, so we just need to get back into that pack.”