Now leaving Azerbaijan with an additional 10 points, they have leapfrogged Alpine into eighth place in the constructors’ standings with seven races remaining. Albon also matched his best race finish with Williams, briefly running in P3 around Baku before he boxed to change tyres.
“It was actually unexpected for us to be in that kind of awkward position where we were in the mix with the leaders,” he said. “Obviously we didn’t pit yet but we were losing a lot of race time because of all the fighting that was going on around me.
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“I didn’t expect it, we didn’t expect it, we thought we would have quite a simple race. I didn’t really know where my race was, I didn’t know where I was going to come out, it was all a little bit unknown. Honestly, we were okay in the second stint, I thought I could get Fernando [Alonso] but he had a great end to his race, he was quick at the end so didn’t quite get him.”
Albon added that the team found their impressive performance to be “a genuine surprise” but it demonstrated that “the package is working well” going into the final part of the season.