Albon: F1 2024 a “lost opportunity” for Williams

Alex Albon Says 2024 Formula 1 season feels like a “missed opportunity” Williams Because it slipped to ninth place in the standings.

Williams started the season on the backfoot with an overweight FW46 and while great efforts were made to reduce the weight again, this also affected its update schedule. The Grove-based team added just one significant two-part update to the car right after the summer break.

This gave Williams a brief window of competitiveness in midfield before rival teams moved forward again, with a number of costly operational errors and accidents further reducing the team’s chances of advancing.

Albon feels the team should have scored more points at the start of the campaign, which could have given it a real fighting chance alpineHaas and RBWhich would have been possible with a car that was launched well above the weight limit instead.

“My general view is that there has been a bit of an opportunity missed,” he said. “It’s easy to focus on the latter half of the season and the crashes, but realistically we started with an overweight car. We should have scored many more points at the start of the year.

“We had an upgrade, which was a good upgrade, and we had a middle part of the season that was respectable. The plan was always to focus on the beginning of next year and at that time a lot of teams passed us. So, if Had we started a bit stronger, as Aston did, made a peak start and fallen behind at the end, we might still have had a solid season, but we didn’t.

“I think our best period was in the middle of the season; like Monza, Baku, Singapore, that was where our car was performing well, and now everyone has caught up. But also with us There’s been a lot of bad luck and a lot of problems, a lot of accidents to be honest, but in a lot of ways, I feel like it’s more of a lost opportunity at the beginning of the year than anything else.”

For Albon, Williams’ difficult 2024 campaign is easier said than done, as team boss James Vowles has made plans for 2026 and beyond to lead the team out of its current predicament.

“At the end of the day, I’m not too bothered. I’m not here for short-term success. I’m here for the long term, so I’m happy with it,” he said.

“Team principals can talk, but I think the failures we’ve had this year have been crystal clear. We’ve been pretty public about it, and I think James has been very honest about where we are.” He is showing you the direction and steps back we need to take in some places to get to a better place for the future.

“He’s also very honest with me, very open with me, and we have this open conversation. Maybe it’s taking a little longer than we wanted, but I’m happy that our aspirations are just on the forward end.” We want more from the midfield, so we’re constantly making sacrifices to get upgrades.”