Tenth an “unimaginable” result for Albon after strategist predicted 19th
Baku, April 11, AZERTAC
The Williams driver ran 57 laps on the same set of hard tyres he started the race on before pitting on the final lap for soft tyres, rejoining ahead of Zhou Guanyu in tenth place and holding the Alfa Romeo off to take the final point in 2022 Australian Grand Prix, according to RaceFans.
Albon said that was a much better result than the team had expected. Their pre-race expectations were more pessimistic after Albon was sent to the back of the grid following his disqualification from qualifying.
“It was strange,” Albon said. “It always seems like that C2 tyre suits our car and there’s suiting a car and then there’s that - where it was almost like I felt like I was doing qualifying laps for the last 30 laps of the race. So it’s pretty special.
“I know for a fact we went into the race, the strategist tells you, ‘OK, this is our best performance, this is what we have to do to get the best outcome’ and it was 19th and 20th and it wasn’t pretty. It didn’t look great behind P18, either. And to come out P10 - it’s completely unimaginable. It’s a very special moment.”
Albon ran almost the entire race on the C2 hard compound tyres, which the team did not plan to do before the race. However as the race unfolded they realised it could work.
