07/02/2023
NEWS STORY
Ahead of his second season with the legendary Grove outfit, Alex Albon admits that the team faces a monumental task in moving back up the grid.
Those attracted to the sport over the last few years by the likes of Drive to Survive, may not realise it but one of the sport's seemingly perineal backmarkers used to rule the roost.
Indeed, Williams remains the most successful British team in terms of constructors' titles having achieved one more than McLaren's eight.
With the sport now dominated by the likes of Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari, McLaren's best hope is to battle the likes of Alpine for best of the rest, and while a return to the podium is currently a distant dream for Williams, according to Alex Albon even moving further up the grid is going to take time.
"Obviously, Logan's coming in with fresh experience, or let's just say, less experience than someone like myself," said the youngster at today's livery reveal. "It's kind of just trying to keep it real. A lot of it is just trying to work together. We've got a long road ahead, realistically speaking.
"We've driven the sim now for a month, we're making inroads," he added. "The main thing is that feedback is the same, we've got similar areas that we want the car to improve in. So we've been chipping away at it.
"And as we've said before, it's a real team effort here to bring the car up the field. We need to be open and honest with where we are and see how it unfolds itself in Bahrain."
Understandably, the Anglo-Thai driver is loathe to make any predictions.
"It's hard to say," he admits. "I would say that we are definitely in a better position ourselves than we were end of last year. But I don't know how that translates to the circuit, I don't know how big of a step everyone else is going to make. Only time will tell.
"When you drive on a simulator, there's a lot of different things that can be misled - correlation and what not - you never quite know. So for now, we're in a better place. But it's hard to say really where we stand."
Last season saw the Grove team drop to tenth in the standings, a position the team has occupied for four of the last five seasons, a far cry from the 90s when it scored five championships in six seasons..
"There were clear weaknesses in the car," says Hill of last year's DW44. "It's not just me, also Nicky last year... Logan drove the car as well. There were pretty obvious weaknesses in the car. Low-speed front-locking was quite a big problem for us, and we're trying to get around that and understand why it was so difficult.
"So areas like that there's a common goal to improve the car and those areas, it's not just myself. The goals are pretty clear.
"Logan, even last year, he had similar feedback, he knows the problems in the car, it's not totally new to him, the feeling of the car. He gets where the car needs to be quicker. So everyone's involved in the development and trying to address the weaknesses we had."
Check out our gallery, here.