Alex Albon quizzed about potential teammate Carlos Sainz after their crash

Alex Albon insists he retains a good relationship with Carlos Sainz - a potential future teammate - despite their collision in Canada.

Williams’ hope that Albon might score points at the Canadian Grand Prix ended when Sainz’s spinning Ferrari collected him, and took him out of the race.

To make matters more awkward, Williams are a major contender for the signature of Sainz in 2025.

“We were in the lounge together,” Albon said about Sainz. “But there were a lot of drivers in the lounge together!”

Asked about their relationship, he said: “As good as it is with everyone else. There are no differences.”

Team boss James Vowles has sounded out his star driver Albon about who his 2025 teammate might be.

“Yeah he’s definitely been open around the whole conversation,” Albon said. “So we’ve been speaking about it.”

Albon has been tied down by Williams to a long-term new deal but the team are surveying options for their other driver next year.

Sainz - who will lose his Ferrari to Lewis Hamilton - is an option but can also consider Sauber.

Albon was questioned about possibly welcoming Sainz, and he said: “Truthfully on my side I’m not so opinionated or fazed around who my team-mate is.

“In terms of experience and general developing of the team of course it would be beneficial.

“We’re on this long journey, on this long project, we need feedback. And I look at myself back from my Red Bull days, and when I joined Williams and there was a lot of things that I could bring to the table that I felt was helping my feedback but also the performance of the car.

“To be honest with you, there’s so many names on the list, whoever it may be I think it would generally be a driver with experience that would come in, and then it’s not really my say but it would be important for us. Especially if we want to be fighting in the midfield in the next few years.”

Current Williams driver Logan Sargeant looks likely to be out of a seat for next year.

A frustrating year was highlighted in Australia when Albon crashed, but Williams asked Sargeant to vacate his car so that their star man could continue with the weekend, having not brought a spare chassis.

Albon said about Sargeant’s likely exit: “Obviously there’s no point speaking too soon.

“He’s been doing a great job the last few races, I don’t think it’s really been understood, especially because we aren’t driving the same car.

“I think this weekend will be the first weekend where it’s equal, so it has been tough for sure. I think he’s a great driver. He’s got great raw speed. We get on very well.”

Williams bring weight-focused upgrade to Spain

Williams arrive at this weekend’s F1 Spanish Grand Prix hoping to give themselves a chance by qualifying well, after lining up in 10th and 13th in Canada.

“Let’s see, we’ve definitely been playing catch-up,” Albon said. “We’ve been getting weight out of the car for the last few races now, so naturally it’s been going on the up.

“It’s weight as well, so unlike other people where maybe aero is a bit up and down, for us it was a guarantee that we’re going to improve.

“There’s some teams bringing a lot of upgrades this weekend, which we’ve got minor ones and again it’s a little bit more weight focused.

“I’ll be interested, because realistically speaking, if you look at Monaco and Canada to Barcelona, they’re very different circuits.

“I think we’ve always struggled around here. I don’t expect us to be as competitive this weekend as we were in the last two, but I’m open for it!

“Obviously I’d rather that not be the case… But I think we’ll be OK, but points fighting will be a bigger ask.”

Albon was asked if the car was at the weight limit if he’d be at the front of the midfield pack.

“If you take the races so far this year it’s almost a guarantee that we would have been,” he answered.

“I think now everyone’s starting to bring upgrades as we are getting closer to the target as well, it’s becoming less that case.

“Of course there’s still lap time in being on target to where we are now, but then again teams like RB have made huge progress, they’re developing very quickly as well.

“So start of the year, yes, and now we’re at the early side of halfway, less so.”

Barcelona this weekend kickstarts a European triple-header with Austria then the British Grand Prix.

Albon was asked what his Williams might be capable of at Silverstone, and he said: “Let’s see. For example even this weekend I expect us to be one of the slowest down the straights, so some of our traits have changed.

“We’ve definitely improved some areas and other areas are less peaky as we’ve seen from last year to this year.

“I’m interested to see where we fall out in Barcelona because I think it’s not a great test…

“Last year for example I think we were 18th and 20th in qualifying and then we were good in Silverstone, but there are corners on this track that will kind of give you a bit of a steer to Silverstone to see if we’re going to be OK or not.

“Last year’s car, generally speaking, was quite good in high-speed short corners.

“Melbourne was a good example, as was Silverstone. This year’s car is a little less…

“It’s not that it’s not suited to those corners, it’s just that last year’s car was more suited to those corners.”

Albon compared the Williams to its previous iteration of a year ago: “It’s the weight, basically!

“I think if you look at it from race one, I think on pace-wise we could have been likely in front of the Mercedes and we started off the year with a good base, possibly a car that we knew wasn’t going to have many upgrades for a while, but obviously as we were hit by the weight.

“Think of it more like what Haas do, start the year strong but then have fewer upgrades throughout the year.

“But with the weight, everything was offset so we’re starting from further back than what we expected to be.

“I think racing is such a joint effort between team and driver. So if you look at last year we had great car in a lot of races, it was peaky but we were able to score points when it mattered.

“This year we just haven’t been able to do that, there’s not been enough peaks for us - Monaco being one and Canada being the other one.

“But when you’re handicapped by at some points four or five tenths a lap, especially at the start of the season, there’s not really much chance of scoring points.”