Alex Albon says his best way to pay Logan Sargeant back for taking over his car at the Australian Grand Prix would be to score points from 12th on the grid.
Williams did not have a spare chassis available due to manufacturing delays, and when Albon damaged his car in a crash in FP1 it meant only one was available for the rest of the race weekend. The decision was taken to withdraw Sargeant and allow Albon to continue, with the latter securing 12th on the grid to start alongside Lewis Hamilton.
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“It’s a different feeling, a weird feeling, if I’m honest,” Albon said. “It’s one thing making a mistake and the pressure of trying to deliver a performance in qualifying, but it’s another feeling when you’ve been given responsibility — and I take that responsibility, it’s not lost on me — so yeah, it’s tough.
“But at the same time the only thing you can do is focus on your job and put it all behind you and treat the weekend like a normal weekend. We’re obviously a session down but generally that’s all I can really do, and so far we’ve done a good job; just got to keep it going, and the ultimate kind of payback to Logan would be some points.
“Yeah, [points] would be a lovely cherry on the top. We have to be realistic though — I’m next to a Mercedes and I don’t think I’ll see him for too long. Yuki [Tsunoda] is surprising — he’s doing a very strong job in the RB, I think our race is going to be with him. It’s the normal Australia, hopefully three red flags and an opportunity to score some points!”
Sargeant has remained in Melbourne to work with Williams and was present in the garage throughout Saturday’s sessions, with Albon saying his teammate has played a valuable role in helping him recover from Friday’s incident.
“We always chat — we’re very open as a team. I was helping him in FP2 and when the decision was made he was helping me. He’s been a true gentleman; he’s been a true team player in this whole situation. We were talking about FP2, things he liked and didn’t like with the car, similar feedback, so can trust him straight away on it and start FP3 where he left off.”
Racing in the knowledge that another major incident would leave Williams without a usable chassis, Albon insists he hasn’t let it influence how hard he pushes and suggests that the team knew it was likely to be caught out by the lack of a spare chassis at some stage.
“I mean, we’ve been driving like this since race one so it hasn’t changed, and our mindset can’t pull back — you just give it everything. Especially when the midfield is as it is, you can’t leave a percent on the table.
“It’s not how we want to go racing, how I want to go racing, how anyone wants to go racing, but we are in this position. We’ve got to scrap, we’ve got to fight, we’ve obviously put a lot of work and effort and reliance on the factory and it’s been tough. It’s too much, so we’re in a pickle — we’ve been in a pickle since winter testing and it’s catching us up as we knew it would do, so hopefully by China or whenever it’s going to calm down a bit.”