Albon owns up to car key incident on first day at Willliams

The Thai driver, who is making his return to F1 in 2022 after a year as Red Bull reserve and competing in the DTM, kicked off his build-up to the new season with a visit to the Grove factory on Wednesday.

However, things did not go completely smoothly as he made a bit of a error as he worked his way around the factory.

"I already lost my car keys on the first day, but we did find them which was great," he admitted.

"I thought I left them on the dinner tray so I was about to look into the garbage cans, but fortunately they were just down the side of the sofa in the simulator room. So a trip to the garbage was saved."

Albon spent the day getting to know the individual team members, and was taken aback by how vast the Grove organisation was.

"Some people see Williams as an intimate team, but it's still massive," he said. "There's still a lot of people here, from marketing to aero, the machine shop to accounting, it's a big team.

"I've seen a lot of new faces and I'm not quite sure I'll remember everyone's names but it's been great to meet everyone."

Alex Albon, Williams

Photo by: Williams F1 team

He added: "It's a very international team and there are a lot of names that I haven't quite got in my head yet, but that will come!

"Other than that, I got to meet my side of the garage in terms of engineering and through the simulator work. We learnt how we do our business – what makes me click and what makes them click."

Albon said that ahead of his F1 return he was feeling a lot more settled about things, as he bids to make a strong impression in 2022.

"It will be my third year in F1, but I feel like I gained a lot of experience over my time," he said. "I'm not this rookie coming into it now, I know what I'm doing and what I want.

"It's great to be able to work with this team who will listen to me, we'll listen to each other and try and get the most out of this car."