08 February 2023 , 19:20
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Alex Albon sees no need to "throw a laptop across the room" to assert his authority now he is the team leader at Williams.
Albon is preparing for his second season with the team, having impressed in 2022. Given an F1 lifeline after dropping out for a year, he managed a handful of points in an entirely uncompetitive car – enough to earn him a new contract last summer.
While it was probably true last year as well, Albon really is the leader of the team heading into the new campaign. His team-mate, Logan Sargeant, is a rookie who was supposed to be spending another year in F2 to hone his craft.
The American was called up earlier than planned after Williams' Oscar Piastri and Nyck de Vries plans failed to come off. With Sargeant in need of guidance and the team floundering at the back of the pack, Albon has been told on a number of occasions that he needs to develop a more ruthless streak.
His old team boss Jost Capito said last year: "He's a real fighter once he closes the sights, but we think he could be more combative outside the car as well. He could be a bit harder on the engineers, for example. I think it would also create a better bond with them."
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Francois-Xavier Demaison, the team's former technical director, and Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan have also opined in recent times that the British-Thai racer would benefit from being a bit more stern at times.
Logan Sargeant will make his Williams F1 debut this year (PA)Albon is keen to develop his leadership skills, but sees no reason to be aggressive for the sake of it. "I would say that the way I go about my business is more to get the best out of the people that I work with," he said. "And I don't think that's necessarily always just being hard on people.
"Everyone works differently and it's about extracting performance in different ways. Everyone has different personalities so I'm definitely focused on becoming more of a team leader and looking at ways to do that, but that's not necessarily just throwing a laptop across the room.
"I don't think that it's a thing where I've got to take responsibility for this and that – naturally, I'm confident in where I feel that we need to go and that was even from the first race of the year last year. From my experience with other teams, I felt I could bring a lot to the table. So in terms of that side, I have an extra year now, so that's even more experience under my belt."