{"id":332123,"date":"2025-12-07T05:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T05:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332123\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T05:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T05:25:11","slug":"f1-news-albon-feels-responsibility-to-return-williams-to-the-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332123\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: Albon \u2018feels responsibility\u2019 to return Williams to the front"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Albon
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Albon says he feels a level of responsibility in returning Williams to the front of the grid. Image: Sam Muller<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old will pass Nigel Mansell\u2019s tally of 96 Williams starts in Miami next year and will then become the first to reach 100 grands prix for the team in Austria.<\/p>\n

He says those milestones have forced him to reflect on both the scale of the project he joined in 2022 and the transformation it has undergone since.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing, it reminds me of the journey,\u201d he told Speedcafe in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

\u201cWilliams was the team that gave me my first opportunity back in 2022, and was the team to trust me in kind of being that person that could bring them back up to the front.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then it was under different leadership with Jost [Capito], and I felt like I was welcomed with open arms, and I was interested to see where we could go.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now, four years later, we\u2019ve gone from P10 in the constructors\u2019 championship to P5.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tWin 4 x Supercars event tickets and celebrate with the winers in the Pirtek Victory Lane – Enter Now!<\/a><\/p>\n

This season has been Williams\u2019 strongest since 2017, with the team currently fifth in the standings and Albon eighth in the drivers\u2019 championship heading into Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

His 11 points finishes have played a major role in a campaign defined by consistency rather than the volatility that once characterised Williams in the ground-effect era.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say very proud of the year,\u201d he said on reflection of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it went really well. It is going really well. For example, this year, we\u2019ve been able to go to most tracks and be in for a chance at points where, you know, I think, the DNA of the Williams cars generally been a lot more peaky.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s been great to be able to kind of go into every weekend with a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Alex Albon is hopeful the form shown by Williams in 2025 will continue into 2026. Image: Sam Muller<\/p>\n

Albon attributes that improvement to the changing face of the team since he arrived.<\/p>\n

He has witnessed shifts in leadership, technical restructuring and significant personnel turnover across his four seasons, but says the environment is now the most cohesive it has been since the start of this regulatory cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019re definitely in a much better place now with this regulation change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of changes through the last four years that I\u2019ve been with the team where there\u2019s been a few kind of one step back, two steps forwards, kind of situations going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

That evolution is shaping his outlook for the major rules reset coming in 2026.<\/p>\n

Early simulator work has already revealed how different the next-generation cars will behave, but Albon believes Williams\u2019 stability and experience can help it avoid the setbacks that hit the team at the start of the 2022 cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely an open-mindedness approach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping having experienced drivers in the team we can outpace and out develop our rivals and maybe hit race one in a better place simply because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A strong working relationship with Carlos Sainz has been another key factor.<\/p>\n

Albon says their similar driving philosophies and lack of ego have given the team clarity in its development direction throughout the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re quite similar people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew what we wanted from the car. We wanted the same things. I think the way we want things, the way we deliver, the context at which we want things is very similar as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no egos between us.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Williams now on an upward trajectory, Albon says the upcoming career milestones carry more weight than he expected. Beyond the numbers, they represent a commitment to a long-term vision he feels deeply invested in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel almost a responsibility in it in many ways as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo think of myself along the likes of, you know, Nigel and Ralf [Schumacher], feels strange to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re in a different journey as a team to back then, but very proud and I think kind of shows as well that I believe in this project to be here for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Albon says he feels a level of responsibility in returning Williams to the front of the grid.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[14203,64,63,806,805,803,804,7499,85,819],"class_list":{"0":"post-332123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-alex-albon","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-slot4","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}