Williams’ Alex Albon has predicted it is going to be a “dogfight” for the remainder of 2025 as a number of groups battle it out to be high of the midfield standings.
Albon and crew mate Carlos Sainz endured a tricky weekend within the Hungarian Grand Prix – ending fifteenth and 14th respectively – with the Grove-based outfit failing to attain for the primary time in three races. Whereas the squad stay fifth within the Teams’ Championship due to their robust early-season type, their benefit won’t final lengthy if they cannot rediscover some efficiency.
The crew rolled the cube and began each drivers on the unfavoured delicate compound tyre, which initially labored for Albon who managed to realize a few locations off the road after beginning final on the grid.
However regardless of splitting methods and placing the Thai driver on the mediums for his second stint and Sainz on the hards, they may not make important progress ahead on a day the place just one automobile retired.
“It was a really robust weekend. I got here into this weekend optimistic, and I really feel like we’re a bit of bit uncovered round this observe and the automobile did not actually go well with it,” Albon defined.
“We struggled within the race greater than I assumed we might. We have to do our homework as a result of I do know we might do a greater job if we had one other go at it. It may be a dogfight for the remainder of the yr and it isn’t going to be simple.
“I believe we favour the decrease downforce circuits and others in all probability favour the upper downforce ones, so we’ll see the way it performs out. However I’ll struggle like hell to maintain P5 within the Championship for us and I am positive Carlos feels the identical. It may be a struggle to the tip.”
Albon has at the least scored within the final two races, together with a brilliant sixth at Spa – a observe Williams have tended to go nicely at in latest historical past. These two factors finishes ended a run of three DNFs, however Sainz has solely managed to attain in two of the final seven Grands Prix.
The Spaniard got here house simply forward of his crew mate in Hungary, through a conflict with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine that noticed the Frenchman penalised.
“It was a cleaner weekend for us; it’s only a disgrace it’s not on a weekend the place the automobile is powerful,” he stated. “P13 appeared like the utmost, which is the place we might’ve been with out the incident with Gasly.
“We tried to do a one-stop however that was in all probability too optimistic going from the delicate to the onerous, however we tried to do one thing totally different earlier than switching to the two-stop.
“I’m leaving the primary half of the season barely disillusioned as we didn’t maximise the weekends the place we have been stronger, however hopefully the second half of the season is the opposite manner round.”
The midfield has tightened up, as evidenced in Hungary by the tiny gaps between groups in Qualifying – hundredths of a second separating automobiles reasonably than tenths.
Aston Martin scored with each automobiles in Hungary, with Racing Bulls and Kick Sauber additionally selecting up factors. Haas and Alpine missed out – however Williams know they’ve a tricky ask to carry onto fifth shifting ahead, particularly with no extra deliberate updates coming to the automobile for the remainder of the season.
