Alex Albon has undertaken his first official day with the Williams team ahead of the 2022 F1 season, though there was a bit of a mishap along the way. The Thai-British driver - who makes his return to the grid this season following a year on the sidelines doing reserve and test duties for Red Bull - visited the squad's headquarters in Grove for the first time since signing with them back in September. During the day, Albon enjoyed getting to know the people he will be working with. "It was very exciting to meet who I'm going to be working with and who's going to be building my car," he said. "It's a very international team and there are a lot of names that I haven't quite got in my head yet, but that will come! "Other than that, I got to meet my side of the garage in terms of engineering and through the simulator work, we learnt how we do our business - what makes me click and what makes them click."
Williams is still a "massive" team
Whilst Williams may be seen as one of the smaller teams on the grid, Albon was surprised by just how vast the operation is. "I've had a tour of everywhere. Some people see Williams as an intimate team, but it's still massive!" he explained. "There's still a lot of people here, from marketing to aero, the machine shop to accounting, it's a big team. "I've seen a lot of new faces and I'm not quite sure I'll remember everyone's names but it's been great to meet everyone." Albon thinks that it might take him some time to get used to the outfit's remote location in Oxfordshire, but was left impressed by the atmosphere. "Firstly, it’s in the middle of the countryside! So I’ve got to get used to that," the former Red Bull driver joked. "It's a really nice place, everything's built under one roof more or less and you can tell that everything is quite close and as a consequence, I feel like everyone knows each other here which is really nice to see. "Everyone's very friendly and I've had a good time."
A first day mishap for Albon
The day didn't go entirely smoothly, though, with Albon suffering a slight mishap involving his keys. "I already lost my car keys on the first day, but we did find them which was great," he admitted. "I thought I left them on the dinner tray so I was about to look into the garbage cans, but fortunately they were just down the side of the sofa in the simulator room, so a trip to the garbage was saved!" Missing keys aside, Albon is relishing being back in a full-time race seat and feels confident about the year ahead. "It's great to be back," the 25-year-old added. "It will be my third year in F1, but I feel like I gained a lot of experience over my time. "I'm not this rookie coming into it now, I know what I'm doing and what I want. "It's great to be able to work with this team who will listen to me, we'll listen to each other and try and get the most out of this car." Albon replaces the Mercedes-bound George Russell at the team, and will be joined by Nicholas Latifi, who now begins his third season with the squad.
1483785679461093378
Making HQ home! @WilliamsRacing 📍 pic.twitter.com/p4oEPeLeFu — Alex Albon (@alex_albon) January 19, 2022
Most read
