(Motorsports news) Vowles came on the radio after the Italian race was over to compliment Albon on “making it look easy,” and his engineer concurred that it was the Thai/British driver’s greatest performance with the squad. Albon used the FW45’s outstanding straightline performance to his advantage in both of his seventh-place finishes in 2023 to conduct a solid defense. Vowles emphasized that in Montreal it was simpler to do that than in Monza, where the driver in front is more exposed.
Albon overcame this obstacle and led faster vehicles for several laps, successfully keeping Lando Norris in second place at the finish line. According to Vowles, there is only really one overtaking point in Montreal, as reported by Motorsport.com. And you may stop it if you take the appropriate actions and leave immediately.
“There are three or four spots in Monza where you can very quickly lose position. You actually saw Alex lose his position, but as soon as he did, he set himself up for the meal. Therefore, he had complete control over his actions during the race, and seventh place was a just reward. Losing one, followed by those three positions, would have been simple, but he never did.
“Again, if we return to Montreal, we were somewhat fortunate in that Esteban [Ocon] was in back with the ‘wobbly’ rear wing. Lando was three tenths of a second behind at times on the rundown to Turn 1 in this situation. Alex nonetheless won the race. Williams was always going to be a threat in Monza, and Vowles acknowledged that he was relieved that Albon was able to live up to those expectations after a surprising eighth-place finish in the Dutch Grand Prix the previous weekend.
The contest for seventh place in the championship comes down to points, he said. “And we’re not stupid; the hard work that has been put in will be utterly undone by just one race. “Zandvoort was about making sure that we can go ahead and score points at other types of tracks, especially high downforce,” said the driver.
With the car you have, shouldn’t you be delivering on this one and managing the expectations that are resting on our shoulders? “I believe that seventh place would be the greatest possible finish position for that car. We’ve gone away fairly happy with as good a result as we could have had, but as you saw, I’d even say that the race vehicle was somewhat off that.
Achieving 21 points two-thirds of the way through the season was, according to Vowles, a “dream” for the Grove team. When asked if that was better than hoped for, he responded, “Yeah, definitely.” “It would have been churlish to ignore the reality that for many championship seasons, we have been within a few points. And I consider it to be a dream to be where we are now.
Also read: Norris: McLaren has improved with low downforce despite difficulties in the Monza F1 race
