Closing races about Williams “holding on” in F1 battle for P7

Within the final two races, AlphaTauri has scored 11 factors and jumped from tenth to eighth within the desk, and the workforce now lies 12 factors behind Williams.

Albon accepts that there stays an opportunity that the Faenza outfit may shut the hole during the last three weekends of the season.

“I believe the risk could be very actual,” mentioned Albon when requested by Autosport about AlphaTauri’s surge within the battle for seventh place.

“They placed on their improve, and I believe immediately made a giant step, and on the similar time, they appeared to unlock it an increasing number of by means of the 12 months.

“In order that they’ve overtaken us when it comes to tempo, that it is fairly clear. They’ve gone to a few tracks, and I believe this monitor shall be one other instance, that go well with their automobile fairly nicely. They appear to be very sturdy in low-speed corners. So it is going be robust.

“The previous couple of races are extra about holding on than anything. However you do not need to have that mindset. You continue to need to be aggressive and push on. However it is going to be difficult.”

Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs

Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri AT04, Alex Albon, Williams FW45, Nico Hulkenberg, Haas VF-23

Regardless of the obvious change within the late-season pecking order, Albon maintained that he nonetheless has religion within the resolution to look in direction of 2024.

“We have taken the selection to simply cease upgrading our automobile since we placed on the improve, which was in Canada,” he mentioned.

“And so for us, lots of it is now about subsequent 12 months. In fact, it will be a disgrace to lose out to P7. However I nonetheless suppose it is the appropriate factor to do.

“We nonetheless have a aggressive automobile, even when it isn’t as aggressive, for example, or it sounds bizarre to say it, but it surely’s a bit of bit previous, although it is 4 months previous or no matter it’s!”

Albon took encouragement from the final race in Mexico, the place his ninth place helped to cancel out two of the six factors that AlphaTauri’s Daniel Ricciardo secured for seventh.

“Mexico is a extremely good instance of what we have to do for the remainder of the 12 months,” he mentioned. “We have to benefit from alternatives once they come.

“I felt like in Mexico we executed every part in addition to we may have executed, to the purpose the place we solely missed out by 4 factors to Daniel as a substitute of six, if we did not rating factors.

“Races like which are principally what’s made our season up to now. And we will need to proceed to try this for the remainder of the 12 months.”