Albon wows Sao Paulo crowds with Williams demo run at the Gulf Speed Festival

Alex Albon swapped the race track for the streets of Sao Paulo to perform a demo run in the FW45 – complete with a special livery – at the Gulf Speed Festival during the weekend.

With the Sao Paulo Grand Prix approaching as part of F1’s upcoming triple header, the festival marked Gulf Oil’s first anniversary of operations in Brazil as well as celebrating the second year of the company’s partnership with Williams.

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And as part of those celebrations, Albon took his car for a spin in front of a crowd of thousands of fans, with the FW45 also decked out in the ‘Bolder than Bold’ livery that previously had runs in last year’s Singapore, Japanese and Qatar Grands Prix.

The design – which was created to celebrate the spirit of the two motorsport brands – was chosen in a livery selection process that saw 180,000 votes cast.

Speaking to F1.com prior to the demo run, Albon shared his excitement at taking part as well as reflecting on how it feels to drive the car in such a different environment.

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“It is different, for sure,” the Thai driver said. “It’s nice to be able to do stuff outside of being on a race track and more focused on engaging with the fans.

“At the same time, in terms of doing donuts and burnouts and all this kind of stuff, weirdly or not, we don't actually practice it that much! So it takes a little bit of learning to get used to it.

“It’s just nice, nice to be in Brazil, in a country where Formula 1 and motorsport is huge, so it's great to be able to do that with Gulf.”

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In terms of the special livery, Albon added: “I do enjoy the livery. I think it looked really good last year, so it's nice [for it] to make a return. It always looks good when it's on the car. I wish it was kind of a more permanent livery, but obviously not!”

Albon will next return to action at the United States Grand Prix, which takes place on the weekend of October 18-20 at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas.