Alexander Albon was amazed by just how slow the cars in front of him were driving in the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Williams driver claimed his first points of the season with ninth place. However he spent the afternoon stuck behind Yuki Tsunoda and said he was surprised how much other drivers were managing their pace.“The pace was painfully slow,” he told the official F1 channel. “Like, painfully slow.
“I could see he had pace and I just thought to myself, these guys, they’re playing it way too slow. I mean, you can go a bit quicker. We got lapped after, like, 20 laps.”
Albon started the race on the medium tyre compound, switched to hards when the race was red-flagged on the first lap, and ran to the end from there. Others who ran the reverse of that strategy had to manage their pace significantly to cover 77 laps on their medium tyres.
The Williams driver admitted even his hard rubber was beginning to suffer by the end of the race. “To be fair, at the end of the race, it was tough, the tyres did degrade, but didn’t think it needed to be so slow like it was.”
Although it was a dissatisfying race, Albon was pleased to finally deliver Williams’ first points of 2024.
“It was maybe a bit of a boring one,” he said. “I wish I had a nicer race, a more fun race to say how we scored our first points.
“But I’ll take that. P9 is great for us. Puts us on the board, puts us in a positive momentum for the for the next few. Last year it took us a while to get some points and then we really started to hit our stride. So I don’t [see] why we can’t do that again.
“We’ve obviously chipped away at the car, got some weight out of the car, brought some small upgrades to the car and it’s paying off.”
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Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
27th May 2024, 9:53
Albon and Tsunoda were lapped after 53 laps. Maybe there’s a reason he’s driving for Williams rather than Red Bull, if he can’t even remember what happened in a very straightforward race. And no, he isn’t exaggerating, because after 20 laps they were “merely” 24 seconds behind P1, which would be absolutely normal in a flat out Monaco race on Michelin/Bridgestone tyres.
w0o0dy
27th May 2024, 10:35
Ok so he got that wrong. I never want to see F1 cars in a parade at F2 pace ever again. This was embarrassing.
jerejj
27th May 2024, 16:37
I agree, but unfortunately, easier said than done.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th May 2024, 19:05
True, I was thinking he was wrong by far when he said that, though I thought it was a few laps earlier than you said.
This is not the first time they’re going very slowly around monaco because even with 3-4 sec gap you can’t pass if you don’t have enough speed in the right spots, 2018 comes to mind with ricciardo leading with an engine problem.
Nick T.
28th May 2024, 0:27
Who hurt you?
DMC
29th May 2024, 19:23
The rule makers continue to make rules that ruin the show.Ok make tyre changes but reset the race pitsops and stop penalising drivers for team mistakes.