Williams handed reality check after Miami 'snowball' - Albon

Alex Albon believes Williams' Miami Grand Prix "snowballed into worse and worse" following a difficult race for the team.

Williams struggled throughout the weekend in Florida, as Albon and team-mate Logan Sargeant started both races from the near the back of the field, and in Albon's case, the sprint from the pit-lane after changes were made in parc ferme.

During the race itself, Albon was the first driver to pit to trade in his medium tyres for hard Pirellis, but he emerged into traffic, which was then compounded by the deployment of the safety car - incidentally for Sargeant being punted into the barriers by Kevin Magnussen.

After the restart, Albon, who remains point-less after six rounds believed the race 'snowballed' away from the team in a vicious circle.

"We boxed on the early side on [Lap 11 for hard tyres] because we damaged a tyre, and within the first two laps, we were fighting with Lance [Stroll] and knew that is was going to be a long race," a downbeat Albon told media including RacingNews365.

"I had 50 odd laps to do with [worn] tyres, and it is not that we weren't coming back, we were okay and had decent pace, but we were just stuck in traffic, behind Lance in the first stint.

"The safety car didn't help us, everyone behind fitted new tyres, and I was the backstop for everyone who decided to stay out, so I did everyone else in front of me a favour.

"But was having to defend every lap to keep them behind and eventually, the tyres just wore out. It was just snowballing into worse and worse."

On the backfoot

Williams finally had a third, spare chassis available during the Miami weekend, along with a pool of spare parts following the early season struggles it had endured.

Albon felt ready to move forwards from the next round at Imola, but conceded that the team is on the backfoot.

"I'm ready to start at Imola, we knew that they were needed as we have fallen back, and [the race] was proof of that."

"To be fair, this weekend, we've never really had the pace.

"On Friday, if we didn't have the issue with the car in sprint qualifying, we maybe would have had a chance in the sprint with all that carnage."