Williams need to raise their game for next season when Carlos Sainz Jnr arrives, says his future team mate Alexander Albon.
The FW46s raced by Albon and current team mate Logan Sargeant have varied in specification for much of the season as the team fell behind schedule during the off-season then suffered a shortage of spare parts following a series of crashes.
Albon welcomed the news of Sainz’s move, saying he believes “having a top driver from a top team brings a lot to Williams.”
“We need that experience and we need that speed as well,” he said, “I don’t know Carlos as well as I do other drivers, but we get on well. I love to go up against top drivers and I feel like we’ll have a great partnership. I think we’re going to learn from each other.
“Also, Carlos’ experience will help bring the team up. Obviously I’ve been in Williams for a few years now, so to have that different point of view about things can only help us.”
However he foresees “a big challenge” for Williams in meeting the expectations of a driver like Sainz, who will join them from Ferrari and previously raced for McLaren.
“I think for us, we need to be able to provide two cars now that are equal in performance,” he told the official F1 channel. “So it’s a big job – we can’t have a season like we’ve just had this year and we need to make sure we fix that for next year.”
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Albon said he expects he and Sainz will have parity on equipment at the team next year but stressed “we need to up our game – we don’t go want to through another year like we did this year, and that’s it really.”
“As a team, Carlos coming on board, he’s going to motivate the whole staff,” Albon added. “You saw the reaction that the team had when he came on board, when he got announced. So I see it as a great thing.
“Also just his experience as well, you can’t underestimate the value it’s going to bring just in terms of what he knows at Ferrari, the way the car feels compared to our car. I’ll be listening in pretty intently as well just to see where our are weaknesses and whatnot.
“Obviously I have my ideas of what they are, but coming from a different car, you really get a different perspective. So it’ll be very good.”
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