Alex Albon came agonisingly close to making an unexpected Q3 showing at the US Grand Prix. The 26-year-old driver was a strong candidate for being one of the United States GP’s top performers on Saturday thanks to his outstanding performance, which saw him finish only 0.03 seconds behind the Q3 cutoff time.
Albon is without a doubt getting more performance out of Williams’ FW44 than a majority of drivers would be able to given that the former Red Bull driver qualified in P12 while his teammate, Nicholas Latifi qualified last.
Albon’s final lap in Q2 was unsuccessful in beating his personal best though, but if Zhou Guanyu’s time hadn’t been disallowed for surpassing track limits, he would have finished P13 instead.
- Helmut Marko fires back at rivals who believe they are gaining an advantage by calling for sanctions against Red Bull.
- Toto Wolff Urges Lewis Hamilton Supporters To “Move On” While Disclosing A Shocking Viewpoint.
Despite this, P12 is an incredible accomplishment for the Thai driver, who, like the entire paddock, was probably greatly saddened by the demise of Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull GmbH co-founder.
The exceptional man passed away at the age of 78, according to the Austrian-based team, who made the announcement just before qualifying.
From the Belgian Grand Prix in 2019 to the end of the 2020 season, Albon raced for Red Bull for about 18 months before being released. Although he had been a Red Bull junior driver since 2012, he had previously competed for AlphaTauri during the initial half of the 2019 season.
On Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas, the Williams driver won’t actually start from P12 since an incredible number of drivers were given grid penalties for going over their allotted amount of power unit components.
It implies that Albon may very well earn some points on Sunday, which would be a very delightful surprise for the team’s American owners, Dorilton Capital.
Prior to qualifying, Williams made a very significant revelation, announcing that Albon would be partnered by Formula 2 and Williams Academy driver Logan Sargeant for the upcoming season, should he place in the top seven of the F2 Drivers’ Championship.
Albon’s performance throughout qualifying, however, undoubtedly showed that, considering his results this season, he is the Grove-based team’s top driver. Albon was actually on the verge of being eliminated from Q1 in Austin when he had taken an unusual line into Turn Two during an ongoing hot lap.
Albon seemed to have been impeded by Lewis Hamilton, and he swiftly radioed in to inquire if anyone else had noticed what the Englishman had done. He asked his team: “Did you see Lewis [Hamilton] there?”
Albon is not the only driver to have voiced displeasure with the sevent-time world champion this weekend; Fernando Alonso was also displeased by the 37-year-old in Friday’s FP2.
Shut up and Race!
Shut up a d Race!