“He Had a Tough Time at Red Bull but…”: George Russell Praises Alex Albon’s ‘Exceptional’ Williams F1 Run

After spending a year on the sideline in 2021 with Red Bull, Alex Albon made a sensational comeback with Williams in 2022. While he still retains ties with Red Bull, the Thai-British driver seems to be enjoying his new stint with Williams. George Russell has now given his thoughts on Albon’s exceptional season.

Alex Albon gets praise from Russell in his debut for Williams

In Monaco, Russell praised Albon for the job he has done so far. Finishing in the points in Australia and Miami and just missing out on points in Imola, Alex is pushing the limits of his machinery.

“Alex has done an exceptional job,” Russell said. “I think there was obviously no secret he had a tough time at Red Bull, but I think all of us, even probably Max included, just knew how talented Alex was.”

It isn’t just George Russell who has this opinion, Head of Vehicle Performance at Williams, Dave Robson, thinks so too. Robson is of the opinion that Albon has been brilliant with the car. He also noted that despite being only in his third year in F1, Alex is showing signs of leadership and guiding Williams through the new regulations. “He knows what he wants,” says Robson. 

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“The bit we’ve got to try and work out with him is how much of what he wants can we actually give him and how much are we just constrained by the rules and the tyres this year and that can be a little bit tricky.” 

Williams to bring updates to make the FW44 more competitive

While Alex continues to impress the Williams team, there have been questions about the upgrades from the team itself. Robson explained that his team does have updates in the pipeline and that there are items in the wind tunnel that are showing good results. 

Robson explained, “The big question is with the resource limitation or the cost cap limitation – at what point do you commit what’s in the tunnel to the real car, or do you just hang on and hope there’s one more big step to come in the tunnel that you can capture.” 

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Dave expanded that for the next few races Formula 1 will be returning to lower downforce circuits and hence there would be fewer updates. However, after that, the question is how soon can Grove-outfit introduce the new upgrades to the FW44?