Alex Albon is one of the biggest ‘what if’ stories in Formula 1, as the Thai driver failed to live up to the standards of Max Verstappen during his time with Red Bull, and now finds himself racing towards the back of the pack with Williams.
The 26-year-old finished third in his final season in F2, only behind George Russell and Lando Norris, so clearly has the potential to be one of the better drivers on the grid, but something just seems to be missing in the driver’s locker that is preventing him from reaching the very top.
Williams team principal Jost Capito and technical director Francois-Xavier Demasion have joined in the F1 staff ‘silly season’ this week and departed the team out of the blue, and Demasion has given Albon some parting advice.
“He’s a nice person, sometimes too nice. He needs to be a bit harder with the team and push us a bit more,” claimed the former technical director.
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“It’s his nature – unless he has the helmet on, then he can be hard, but he should be a bit harder in the debrief.
“Every day I tell him, ‘You have to be a…’ a word I will not pronounce! If you want to be a world champion, you have to be like this!”
Demasion has however explained that Albon’s experience with Red Bull has paid dividends at Williams, as the Thai driver has been able to point his engineers in the direction necessary to be successful.
“It was a really good help for us because we are only engineers and we need drivers to give us a direction,” he said.
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“And because of his experience, it’s helped us and given us the right direction.”
Of the 20 full-time drivers on the grid in 2022, Albon only managed to outscore his teammate Nicholas Latifi by picking up points in Australia, Miami and Spa.
Having looked strong towards the end of 2021 with George Russell, Williams appear to have taken a step backwards under the new regulations and will hope that the change of leadership in 2023 can help the team get back to becoming regular point scorers once again.