F1 News

Albon credits Toro Rosso for giving confidence and reassurance in F1 car

Albon credits Toro Rosso for "giving confidence and reassurance" in F1 car

19-05-2019 14:17
Author profile picture

Nicolás Quarles van Ufford

Toro Rosso rookie Alexander Albon has credited his team and its crew members for supporting him during his rookie season, as the Thai driver reveals they give him constant reassurance and confidence during the tougher days.

Albon, like the two other rookies in Lando Norris and George Russell, has had a very solid debut season in F1 so far. Like Norris, he has scored points on two occasions so far in the opening five rounds, despite never having driven in a Formula 1 car prior to this year.

The 23-year-old is happy with the way things are going this campaign, although he does know there is work to be done.

“I think it's been going well - still trying to improve and there's still a lot of room there,” Albon was quoted by Crash.net.

“But I've had a really good feeling with the team from the beginning, and Franz [Tost, Toro Rosso team principal], and really everyone in the team, especially my engineer - I feel we have a very good relationship.

“They've been really supportive about everything, and of course in F1 you have a lot of tough days but they are always reassuring me and giving me confidence, so I'm happy."

Having progressed through the season, Albon does concede he wasn't as comfortable with the car at the start of the season as he is now, simply because of the greater mileage he has after five Grand Prix weekends.

“I feel comfortable, really. I feel more comfortable with the car, mainly driving-wise, in the high-speed stuff. In the low-speed, it's all very similar to me.

“Now I know what I want in the car, really, in winter testing it was more about the guys doing a change and me saying 'that was good' or 'that wasn't good'.

“Now it's more like, I know what I want, and that's it. What we've been doing in FP1 and FP2s, we know how we want the car to operate, just trying to get it there, took a bit of time.”

So, what are the main points to be improved for Albon for the rest of the 2019 season?

“We’ve been very consistent,” he argued.

“The results haven’t really shown anything, but we’ve been P14, P9, P10, P11 - something like this.

“It’s been a very consistent few races. Not ideally what we want but I’m getting into the swing of it, I just need to work a little bit on myself in qualifying.

“Race pace seems pretty strong always. I think our car is good on race pace, so that’s definitely a strong side for us. We haven’t been using that to our advantage.

“In my eyes I’ve got the pace, at least in short runs, but I just need to hook it up a bit better in qualifying.”

Having just missing out on points in both Baku and Spain, Albon will target another strong outing in Monaco next weekend.

Follow GPblog now on TwitterYouTube, and Facebook!