Alex: “This year has been a huge improvement”

Alex Albon was our racer in the FIA press conference earlier in Monaco, ahead of the first European grand prix of the season.

Our number 23 shared how he fared in Williams Esports’ Virtual race for Emilia-Romagna, alongside general discussions ahead of tackling the streets this weekend.

Here’s what Alex had to say in front of the media.

It was good fun. I didn't have the old teammates back [Twitch Quartet - Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris], so it was a bit more lonely than it was… what two, three years ago now?

But it was for a good cause, we raised good money. And yeah, it was kind of embarrassing because the Esports guys, there were seven or eight of them, and they're over a second quicker than you and you don't feel good!

Yeah, I do. I feel like every track we've been to this year has been a huge improvement. It's been great to go into FP1s and you're already feeling better than you did in qualifying last year.

Half the time we're even quicker than we were last year straightaway, so there's a lot of confidence, a lot of satisfaction. So this track is a bit specific.

I would say that a lot of the advantages of our new car are more high-speed related. When you come to a track like Monaco, it goes away a little bit.

But let's see. I think Monaco is a little bit of an outlier to the other circuits we go to and some teams can perform better than others just due to this unique layout.

[It’s] true. But you know, when you say a third [of the total points this time last season], you think about multiple points but we were in single digits last year and we are this year, and the main thing for us is that the car is on a better platform.

I would say the opposite: not frustrated at all, but very optimistic and positive about how the season’s gone so far.

Of course, we haven't scored as many points, but if you actually look at our true pace, there aren't many teams DNF-ing anymore and there aren't any strange races happening.

The one race there was, in Melbourne, unfortunately, I had a mistake myself so I look at this year very positively and hopefully we can keep building on it through the season.

I remember my first year it was a bit of a shock to the system to come here. I remember just because the walls are so narrow here as well the emotion of speed is even higher than normal.

At my first ever test in Barcelona, I was shocked by the speed of a Formula 1 car but, after that, you get used to it very quickly.

But then when I came back when I came to Monaco for the first time it was… yeah, as soon as you start going up the hill flat out… yeah, wet pants!