Williams Racing achieves first major milestone of 2022

In the grand scheme of things the tenth placed result for Alex Albon may seem not to be much of an achievement but relative to where the team and its fans thought they would be with both cars starting 18th and 20th in Sunday's race it was a major achievement.

Coming off two difficult opening races in the 2022 season, with Saudi Arabia race seeing a double DNF, and with Williams lacking the pace to be competitive it was expected that the opening series of races were going to be tough for the team and drivers. On top of this the team having the difficulty of having to cope with damaged cars coming from the Saudi race as well as in qualifying for the Australian event it made their position even more difficult.

At the beginning of the race neither Williams car appeared to have the outright pace to achieve any significant result based on lap time alone but as the race progressed the car of Alex Albon started to show impressive lap times on what were old hard tyres relative to the other drivers around him.

Alex would start the race from 20th on hard tyres and would find himself as high as seventh having yet to pit while the other drivers on that compound had made their pit-stops. On the penultimate lap of the race Alex would finally pit changing to the soft tyre and was able to return just in front of Zhou and then was able to go on and finish tenth and secure the single point.

It very much a case of fantastic tyre management from Alex to get his hard tyres so far into the race and still set competitive lap times combined with a very much an out of the box strategy call that would see Alex and the team achieve that milestone of securing their first point of the season.

Team principal Jost Capito spoke after the race by commenting: “I would say this is racing and this is what racing is all about.

“Coming from P20, last car on the grid and getting a point.

“Alex did an outstanding job – the race pace was extraordinary. The strategy, I would say, was a bit risky – but no risk, no fun – and at the end, it worked out perfectly.”

"So fantastic end to a difficult weekend but getting the first point is worthwhile all the effort and all the pain we went through this weekend and the car was fantastic and Alex did an outstanding job."

A small step for the Williams Racing Team but regardless such a major milestone in what has been a difficult season to date.