Alexander Albon admitted he wasn’t certain he would be able to return to action this weekend after experiencing complications arising from surgery two weeks ago.
The Williams driver was forced to miss the Italian Grand Prix after developing appendicitis. He underwent surgery on Saturday but suffered respiratory failure and had to be taken to intensive care.
Being sedated had a physical impact on Albon, in addition to the surgery itself, and created extra uncertainty over when he could return to racing.
“It was more kind of bed recovery to begin with,” Albon explained during the FIA press conference in Singapore today.
“It’s quite a tricky one because you’re basically waiting for your lungs to recover. And at the same time, your body can’t move as well as it normally can. So you can’t just jump back into normal training, you have to slowly build into it. So it was kind of starting Monday last week when we really started to push it and see what we can do.
“I treated it like a nine-to-five job, training and recovery. Of course, recovery is really important, basically throwing everything [at it], and day by day I was getting better and better.”
Despite his rate of improvement, Albon was unsure whether he would be able to race in Singapore. It is widely regarded as the toughest race on the calendar due to the bumpy, punishing track and combination of high ambient temperatures and humidity.
“I got to a point where the recovery was going really well and I don’t think we truthfully had in mind Singapore on the cards,” he admitted. “But just with the speed of the recovery, it was definitely a possible thing.
“We sat long and hard to think about it, shall we do it or not, and I feel like I am ready. Of course we have to wait until FP1 tomorrow to see where it’s at because driving around here is a bit of a different beast.”
The operation Albon had on his appendix is usually straightforward, he said. “It’s a relatively simple procedure. I think it only takes a couple of hours to be operated on. But obviously you don’t understand time when you’re sedated.”
It was only when he came around that he discovered the operation had proved more complicated than expected. “When I did wake up, I thought that was the procedure finished. It was only they said, ‘well, you actually have gone through a little bit more than that’.”
However the consequences of his respiratory problem proved less severe than was initially feared. “I was…
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