Alex Albon heads to Williams a ‘more complete’ Formula 1 driver

Alex Albon believes his year on the sidelines with Red Bull has made him a better driver as he now heads to Williams.

Albon first joined the Formula 1 grid in 2019 after being recalled to the Red Bull fold and assigned to their junior team, Toro Rosso.

After half a season he found himself stepping up to a Red Bull seat. But after encountering similar struggles to Pierre Gasly’s up against Max Verstappen, Albon lost his spot at the end of the 2020 season, leaving him to spend the following campaign as Red Bull’s test and reserve driver.

The 2022 campaign will though mark Albon’s return to the grid after he struck a deal with Williams which also gives Red Bull an option to recall him for 2023.

And despite not having raced in Formula 1 during 2021 he felt the experiences of that season, when he watched on from outside the cockpit, have made him a better all-round driver.

“I had the chance to look around and see how Formula 1 works away from [the driver]. As a racing driver, you concentrate completely on driving and that’s it,” he told Motorsport-Total.com.

“I’ve gained a lot of experience and I’ve also looked at how Checo [Perez] and Max work, how they structure their team and communicate with their engineers.

“Even though I didn’t drive the car much, the guys at Red Bull know a lot about the car. They know how to make a car fast. And I can bring that to Williams. Next season, I will be a more complete driver.

“It was part of my role [in 2021] to help the team and do the best possible job for them. But that also helped me.”

While for many drivers spending so much time in the simulator may not seem too enticing, for Albon it was a “great feeling” to be part of Red Bull’s charge for the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles.

“It felt great to be a part of it. I did a lot of 100 and 1,000 laps in the simulator and tried to get the best performance with the team,” he said.

 

The title race ultimately came down to the final round in Abu Dhabi and while the Constructors’ Championship went the way of Mercedes for the eighth season in succession, Red Bull came out on top in the Drivers’ Championship courtesy of Verstappen’s last-lap overtake on Lewis Hamilton.

And so for Albon, all of his hard work felt “like it was absolutely worth it” in the end.

Moving on now to Williams, Albon will be reunited with his ex-Formula 2 team-mate Nicholas Latifi.

 

 

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