Williams has only scored one point this season, courtesy of a 10th-place finish for Albon in the Bahrain season opener. At this point in 2022, it had three of its eventual eight points.
Despite the downturn in the constructors’ standings, the ‘supertimes’ metric that records each team’s fastest lap during a race weekend indicates that Williams has closed the gap to leading outfit Red Bull by 0.74 seconds over an average 90s lap compared to last year.
For the four rounds covering the Australian to Monaco GPs, Williams was between the seventh and eighth-fastest team before dropping to the bottom of the file at Barcelona last weekend.
Albon reckons this is owed to moving away from the street circuits that have dominated the start to 2023, with the slippery Williams FW45 lacking the downforce needed to compete at a more typical venue.
The Thai-Brit, who finished 16th in Spain, believes Williams has now been ‘exposed’ as the slowest team in F1 after a better-than-expected start to the term. He said: “I’m happy with myself. I feel like we did a good job. That’s where we are.
“We’ve done a few races now where the tracks have been a bit more, how can I say it, characterful - street tracks and unique tracks.
“You come here to Barcelona and it’s a proper racetrack and it exposes us a little bit.
“It’s no secret, we’ve been saying it more than anyone else, we’re still the 10th-quickest car.
Source: Autosport