REPORT: Points secured in the principality

Williams Racing finished F1's Jewel in the Crown event with a top-10 finish and our first points of the 2024 season, thanks to Alex Albon's P9.

Much of the hard work came from the incredibly tight Saturday qualifying that saw our No23 reach Q3, but Alex and Logan still had plenty of work to do during Sunday's Grand Prix.

Logan, who crossed the line in P15, even got to execute some principality passing, a rarity in the Monaco GP as he duelled with Guanyu Zhou.

The opening lap had both Williams Racing drivers escape any damage while five of our rivals suffered various degrees of damage.

Carlos Sainz suffered a puncture after tapping Oscar Piastri, allowing Alex and Logan to gain a position, though that advancement was shortlived.

Sergio Perez and the two Haas drivers crashed heavily on the uphill Beau Rivage run to leave carbon fibre debris across the track and force a Red Flag stoppage.

All three drivers walked away uninjured but out of the race, and the restart had Sainz back in his original P3 placement, demoting Alex and Logan from their earlier gains.

The race resumed after a 40-minute delay, and a clean getaway for all remaining drivers had the added twist that a no-stop strategy was possible thanks to tyre changes in the red flag period.

Alex recalled his tyre-whispering ways to keep close to Tsunoda through the 78-lap race and secured P9 and our first top-10 finish of 2024.

However, we welcomed Logan to the pit box once his long stint didn't work out when others around him pitted, then overtook the No2 FW46 on far fresher tyres.

Our American reversed his fortunes after getting a new set of Pirelli rubber and took advantage of the leaders when lapping Zhou to push past the Sauber before the hairpin.

It proved a memorable Monaco day for Williams Racing, with our first 2024 points following Zak O'Sullivan's first F2 win and Luke Browning taking to the podium in F3 earlier in the morning.

Alex spoke of his happiness after his afternoon's work, saying that, "Whilst you’d rather have a slightly more exciting race to win points at, I’m still happy.

"P9 for the team and our first points of the season which means a lot to us.

"You never want to be pointless, especially for the team's morality, so hopefully this will be a nice kickstart to the season.

"It was a bit frustrating out there as you could see how much pace Yuki had but he was managing excessively, so it was a very slow and painful race; I was struggling to stay focused.

"We’ve added small amounts of performance to the car so it’s good to see these upgrades working and that we’re able to stay around a similar pace to our direct competitors."

P15 for Logan came after some midfield fights, and he said, "It was a tricky race and looking at a rear wing was pretty much my day.

"It was uneventful for the most part; I was stuck underneath Fernando and Danny for a long time, and it just started to eat away at the tyres, and I really had nothing left.

"The rears completely degraded and from there I was hanging on to the tyres.

"Once I put the new tyre on and got some clear air, I felt good.

"Alex getting points is a boost for the team and shows a bit of what is to come.

"Going forward, when both cars have the same spec, we’ll both be able to fight for these opportunities more."

There was more feel-good factor for Sven Smeets, Williams Racing's Sporting Director, who shared his post-Monaco thoughts: "Scoring your first points of the season is always a great feeling, so we’re happy to take P9.

"Being in Monaco, the foundations for those points were laid yesterday in Qualifying, so it’s great that we had a car which could deliver across the entire weekend for Alex.

"Today was a bit of a strange race after the Red Flag restart with most cars trying to go to the end.

"Alex managed his Hard tyres well as it was key not to grain the front tyres and keep them in the right window.

"Logan's race was more difficult as he spent most of the time in traffic but once in clean air, he showed some great pace.

"We’re looking forward to Canada as we had a great race there last year and should be bringing some weight-saving parts."