Alex Albon secured crucial points for Williams with a strong fifth-place finish at the 2025 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix and with a little help from his team-mate Carlos Sainz.
The 28-year-old started the Grand Prix from sixth on the grid, as he lost one place at the start to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc after the race finally got underway.
Heartbreak occurred for Williams after Sainz crashed out of the race behind the Safety Car, which was brought out due to Jack Doohan binning his Alpine car on the opening lap.
The Spaniard lost control of his FW47 heading into the final corner, blaming the incident on a “massive torque surge” over the team radio.
With one Williams car left running in the race, Albon managed to keep the other Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton at bay for the majority of the Grand Prix.
He eventually pitted for dry tyres, along with many other drivers, during the Safety Car brought out by Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin.
With a heavy shower set to hit the circuit, Albon and Williams chose to pit early back onto the intermediates.
This decision proved to be vital, as amongst the chaos and another Safety Car, Albon found himself in fourth place before eventually finishing in fifth place.
Team Principal James Vowles credited his team-mate, Sainz, afterwards for helping him secure a significant points haul in Melbourne.
“There was an additional strategist today and that was Carlos,” he told Sky Sports F1.
“His insight was incredibly useful on that transition to the inter.
“You saw a number of teams not sure, Carlos was adamant, ‘you’re gonna want to swap on that’ – and he was spot on!”
In a press release from the team, Vowles added: “I’m unbelievably proud of this team and I can’t wait to get to Shanghai in just a few days.
“I’m looking forward to what we can do across the remainder of the season.”
Albon hails ‘fantastic start’ after P5 finish
In the remaining laps, Andrea Kimi Antonelli overtook the Thai-British-born racing driver on his Mercedes debut.
The Italian was handed a five-second time penalty, initially bumping Albon back up into fourth, but it was later rescinded after a successful appeal from the German squad.
Reflecting on his performance after the race, Albon admitted he wasn’t feeling too “confident” in the tricky conditions.
“Honestly, it was one of those really awkward races where it never felt comfortable,” he explained.
“The wind was busting like crazy, the conditions were obviously so mixed.
“I wasn’t that confident in the race; it was more about making sure you don’t make mistakes and you knew the result was going to come at the end of it.
“There were moments in the race where I felt better and other moments of the race where I felt, especially when the wind picked up, where I felt like relative to others I was losing performance.”
However, he expressed his joy after the team managed to capitalise on the chaos to pick 10 valuable points.
“I think as a team, we really executed everything we could today,” Albon added.
“First race, it’s not easy to be dialed in, if you know what I mean, in terms of strategy and approach to the weekend.
“We executed everything so well today to get that P4.
“Just a fantastic start, and it just shows we’ve made a huge step from last year.
“These results, P4s, they’re not going to come around many times this year.
“We’ve talked a lot about capitalising early, internally within Williams, trying to make sure we take advantage of rookie drivers and things like that to get them points quickly and P4 today, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
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