"We'll go for the attack this weekend" – Williams' Alex Albon reveals his plans for the F1 Australian GP after his 3-place grid penalty

Williams’ Alex Albon says having to serve a three-place grid penalty at the 2022 Australian GP for an infringement in the previous round doesn’t change his team’s approach to the weekend.

The Anglo-Thai driver said his team is planning to go on a “full attack” mode at Melbourne regardless of their starting position. Speaking at the FIA press conference ahead of the weekend, he said:

“If we can get into Q2, that would be great. Any position helps later on Sunday. I think we’ll go full attack this weekend – but of course we do understand that the race is more of a priority.”

Alex Albon was handed down the penalty in the last race in Saudi Arabia for tangling with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll during the closing stages of the race. He retired from the race soon after the incident and was unable to serve the penalty in Saudi Arabia, leading to it being carried over to Australia.

Meanwhile, Williams is one of the few teams that are on the back foot this season. Despite the team’s struggles to understand their car, Albon managed to extract good pace in the last two rounds. Speaking about his chances in Melbourne, he said:

“We’re still hungry. We’ve got to fight this weekend. We don't know how overtaking is on this circuit. The way that the track is, obviously it should improve but you never know.”

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Alex Albon predicts tough qualifying for Williams, despite substantial upgrades

Alex Albon has predicted a tough qualifying session for Williams in Melbourne but hopes to be in the latter stages of the session. While he managed to narrowly progress into Q2 in the first round in Bahrain, he had no such luck in Saudi Arabia.

Albon, however, hopes the plethora of upgrades the team brought to Australia will have a positive impact on Qualifying, saying:

“We want to be getting into the later stages of qualifying. It’s one of those things where I think at the minute, we need to just be that much more on top of it in terms of our preparation into qualifying, just to maximise what we have but I feel like we can do that as a team.”

Williams brought the biggest upgrade package of any team on the grid to Australia. The FW44 received a revised front wing, rear wing, and a new floor, which the team hopes will help solve some of their issues from the previous rounds.