Lawson made headlines for profitable on his sportscar racing debut at Monza, with one other podium end at Zolder asserting his place because the closest challenger to championship chief Kelvin van der Linde.
Albon, in the meantime, has had a comparatively quiet begin to his first season within the DTM, claiming his first podium within the fifth race of the 12 months – though he was retrospectively promoted to 3rd within the season opener following Vincent Abril’s disqualification from the race.
The Anglo-Thai driver had beforehand defined that he had been struggling to place collectively a clear lap in qualifying, largely attributable to site visitors, which meant that he all the time confronted an uphill problem within the races.
He lastly made amends for that on the Nurburgring on Sunday, mastering the difficult moist situations in second qualifying to place his AF Corse Ferrari on pole place.
He adopted that consequence with a superb drive in a dry race, surviving two security automotive intervals to finish a powerful lights-to-flag win.
Speaking after his first victory in any class because the 2018 Formula 2 function race at Sochi, Albon was eager to shoot down recommendations that Lawson had an higher hand over him within the first half of the season.
The 25-year-old identified that he had been sitting a good fifth within the championship previous to the weekend, and has now overtaken Lawson within the standings after the Kiwi endured a nightmare weekend on the Nurburgring.
“I don’t think I’ve been overshadowed,” he stated. “It’s simply regular to take a little bit of time to get used to a automotive, coming from an F1 automotive to a GT3 is a little bit of a step.
“And it, I’ve had a number of races [where I have] been fairly robust, it is simply struggling somewhat bit in qualifying.
“This weekend and [at the previous round at] Zolder it has been constructive and we have been making progress.
“Still till Saturday, I do not know the place we’re within the championship now however we have been fifth [until Race 1], so it is not like we’re on the again driving nowhere.
“We’ve been competitive so I think for my first year in DTM it’s not been going too bad.”
Alex Albon, AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
The key to Albon’s race victory was the second restart, the place he discovered himself ninth on observe – albeit nonetheless within the internet lead – with Mercedes’ Daniel Juncadella proper behind him.
But Albon was in a position to carve his means by means of the sphere with relative ease, dissipating any menace of an assault from Juncadella beneath site visitors.
“It was a tricky one,” he defined. “[At] the race begin and the primary security automotive [restart] you might be in management, so it is not that troublesome. As lengthy as you get a good launch you would be forward into Turn 1.
“But [at the second restart] we have been beginning P9 and Dani was P10 at the moment. You are ready the place you do not need to be too aggressive since you’re really in a internet lead, however on the identical time it’s important to get by means of [traffic] shortly as a result of the others are going to do it.
“So it was kind of that thing where you had to be [both] aggressive and careful. Luckily, I think after that second restart we were up into P4 straight away and that really dictated the race because from there on I didn’t have to worry too much about cars behind and I can take the other guys off one by one.”
Albon was downbeat after struggling his first DNF of the season in Race 1, however credited the AF Corse staff for remodeling his Ferrari right into a race winner in a single day.
“Coming from Saturday we were quite far behind in terms of pace and especially race pace, and it was looking a bit gloomy for Sunday, but the guys did a lot of work overnight,” he stated.
“We have been simply struggling to modify on the tyres and understanding the rain we received pole place, but it surely was virtually like ‘okay, now what?’ as a result of it was dry for the race.
“Fortunately we nonetheless stored that set-up philosophy and it labored. It’s been an ideal day for the entire staff and myself.
“Starting this 12 months we have been somewhat bit on the again foot with expertise and every race has come by and we have made a step ahead.
“Zolder was already a good weekend for us and now coming here it’s been another step forward. Hopefully we can keep that momentum.”
