The race in Melbourne was a big opportunity for the F1 teams that usually finish near the bottom. Normally, they don’t get a chance to finish higher than 11th place based on their speed.
Before the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, only Haas had scored a single point in Jeddah.
But when Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and both Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had to retire, suddenly there were three chances to score points.
Yuki Tsunoda from Red Bull took full advantage of their bad luck and finished eighth. After a penalty for Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, he moved up to seventh.
Both Haas drivers, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, finished in the top 10. This left Williams, Alpine, and Sauber with no points after three races.
Albon from Williams finished 11th behind Magnussen. He was disappointed because they couldn’t make the most of the rare opportunity in Melbourne to get a lot of points.
“It’s been frustrating because our rivals scored points,” he said.
“We need races like this when three cars from the top teams retire. You have to take advantage of that, but unfortunately, we didn’t.
“We didn’t have the speed on the track that we hoped for.
“Every time I had to match the speed of the cars around me, my tires got worn out. When I could go at my own pace, it was okay, but I was slower than the others by about three and a half tenths of a second.
“We had to adjust the car so much to stop it from sliding all the time. But then the balance was really bad, and I was sliding on the rear tires while the front tires were still getting worn out.”
For Albon, finishing 11th again was tough, especially because Williams only had one car in the race. He had to drive Logan Sargeant’s car after Sargeant crashed his car during practice.
“It’s been a hard weekend for all of us at Williams,” Albon said. “But we fought through it quite well considering everything that happened.
“I made a mistake in FP1, which was not good. But I think qualifying went well, and I got almost everything out of it. In the race, we didn’t have enough speed.
“I talked with Logan throughout Friday, and the issues he had then were the same issues I faced on Sunday.
“Hopefully, we’ll do better in Japan. I’ll get my car back, and Logan can have his car back.”
Also read: Williams Justifies Sargeant’s Decision to Yield F1 Car for Albon
