New team boss James Vowles is making an immediate impact at Williams and “pointing the ship in a different direction”, Alexander Albon told reporters on Thursday at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Former Mercedes strategy boss Vowles has been at Williams for less than two weeks but has already energised the team, said the Anglo-Thai driver.
“You can see how motivated he is. It’s only been 10 or 11 days, but already it feels like he’s pointing the ship in a different direction,” said Albon.
“So far, it’s tricky because the change is late (referring to Vowles’ arrival) and we won’t see the effects straight away, but through the year, it should show.”
After 11 years at former champion Mercedes, Vowles has swapped the front end of the grid for the back in moving to the struggling tail-ender which has finished bottom in four of the last five years.
“He clearly had a big involvement in all areas of the team at Mercedes, he knows a lot about all the moving parts,” said Albon.
“Coming from a team like Mercedes, which has obviously had a lot of success, for him to have all that knowledge, it reminds me a bit of my first time at Red Bull.
“When I joined this team, coming from a team with all that success, it’s ears open.... really seeing if there are changes we can make short-term, long-term, even driving wise -- maybe the drivers pay more attention to certain things.”
Albon, 26, added the team had to be realistic in its expectations.
“We’re going to have to fight for a chance for points. It’s not going to be an easy one,” said Albon, who has two podium finishes to his name when he drove for Red Bull.
“Something has to happen for that to happen.
“When I look at testing, we were very reliable, which is a very good positive to have.
“With the first race of the year, there are often reliability problems and hopefully, we can take advantage of that.”
Comments
SHARE