Alex Albon: At least there are no groundhogs in Monaco.

      Alex Albon scored points in Monaco for two consecutive years, but this season his performance has not been the best, and he currently has only one point to his name. Williams team principal James Vowles believes that Alex had a decent chance of reaching the points in Montreal, but at the very beginning of the weekend, an unexpected incident threw him off track.

      His car sustained significant damage in an accident caused by a groundhog getting under the wheels. Therefore, when Alex was asked about his chances in Monaco, he started by recalling that unpleasant incident.

      Alex Albon: "At least there are no groundhogs in Monaco, so I think everything should go more smoothly here. Usually, we perform well on this track, plus we know that the extra weight of our car will hardly affect our speed here, which is also a plus.

      We also see that our car probably handles slow corners better than fast and medium-speed ones. Overall, I have a very positive outlook. Controlling energy consumption here will also be much easier, and I hope we have an interesting and fun weekend ahead.

      Speaking of Williams' progress, in Melbourne we were clearly closer to Cadillac and Aston Martin than we are now. I think we have already approached the upper limit of the midfield teams and in Montreal we were only behind Alpine. So we are gradually moving forward and a couple of races ago we introduced a decent package of technical updates, which allowed us to increase speed, although there is still a lot of work ahead.

      But I believe that James Vowles thinks quite realistically when he says that by 2030 Williams will be able to compete for wins. I don't think he is trying to exaggerate. Of course, it would be great if this happened a bit earlier, although this year we have regressed somewhat, so we are probably falling behind our own plans.

      And yet I believe James when he says this... I want to see the team's progress, and it seems to me that in all four previous years that I have been racing for Williams, we have demonstrated it, getting better and better. As far as I can see, positive changes are happening with the team, so the development direction is chosen correctly."