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Williams boss Jost Capito believes his team will benefit from the experience Alex Albon brings to the team this season.
Albon joins the squad having spent a year out of a Formula 1 seat after being dropped by Red Bull in favour of Sergio Perez for 2021.
The 25-year-old this season makes his return in place of the Mercedes-bound George Russell.
“I think Alex fitted very well to the team. [He] is a great person, he is a big fighter,” said Capito in Bahrain.
“I think this experience last year not being in the car, but seeing the team work from the pits, and from the other side, is very beneficial for him to get back in the car and I think will benefit from this.”
Albon made his F1 debut with Toro Rosso, as it was then known, in 2019 before being promoted to the senior Red Bull team mid-season in place of Pierre Gasly.
An unspectacular 2020 campaign left him given the cold shoulder for the following season, replaced by Perez at the senior team while Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda locked him out of AlphaTauri.
He spent the year racing in DTM and working as test and reserve driver for both Red Bull and AlphaTauri – ironically acting as a driver coach to Tsunoda for a period.
At Williams, he’ll race alongside Nicholas Latifi, the pair having been team-mates at DAMS in 2018 while racing in Formula 2.
“It really just feels like kind of picking up where we left off, to be honest,” the Canadian said.
“We always still had a good relationship, every time we bumped into each other on or off the track is all still friendly.
“So yeah, it just feels like picking up where we left off.
“It’s been all good so far at the factory and we’ve been there together on track as well.
“We’ve been having very similar comments about the car’s limitations so far, which I think again is very important, especially with these brand-new regulations.”
The 2022 Formula 1 season gets underway on Friday with opening practice in Bahrain starting at 23:00 AEDT.
