"I hope to be more Mr. Sunday" - Williams' Alex Albon jokes about comparisons with 'Mr. Saturday' George Russell

F1-returnee Alex Albon doesn’t want to replicate George Russell at Williams, outperforming the car on Saturday, and struggling for pace during the race. The Thai driver said he would rather prefer to be known as "Mr. Sunday" and hopes to put in a better performance during the race.

When asked if he was the new "Mr. Saturday", after putting in a stellar qualifying performance to drag a struggling Williams into Q2, in a post-qualifying media session, he said:

“No, George will get that. I rather hope to be Mr. Sunday.”

During his days with Williams, the now-Mercedes driver George Russell built up a reputation for 'outperforming' his machinery during Qualifying. He was, however, unable to convert his impressive performances on Saturday into meaningful results on race day. He would often drop down the order like a stone and would be unable to prevent faster cars from breezing past his uncompetitive Williams.

Alex Albon, a good friend of Russell’s, returned to the sport after a year on the side-lines. During this time, he worked for Red Bull as a reserve and developmental driver, with support from Milton Keynes and Russell.

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Alex Albon ‘outperformed’ the car: Williams technical boss

Despite struggling for pace, Alex Albon’s return to F1 has been smoother than expected, with Williams impressed with his work so far. According to the team’s head of vehicle performance Dave Robson, the Thai driver has performed better than what the team was hoping for throughout testing and at the Bahrain GP weekend.

Speaking to the-race post-Bahrain qualifying, Robson said:

“That’s the first qualifying session we’ve had with him, and testing isn’t really the same. It was good to see him really take charge. He was completely calm, he’s got a lot of talent and could extract a really good performance from the car today. He probably outperformed the car.”

With a radical change in regulations and more developmental allowance than most teams at their disposal, Williams was expected to take a step up in 2022. Unlike its former rivals Haas and Alfa Romeo, the British squad has, however, failed to break away from the bottom half of the grid.

The FW44 showed promising signs during Barcelona testing, with its more advanced aerodynamic features. It now seems to be pretty hard on its tires, however, and unable to get the tires working within the right temperatures.