Alex Albon, the man who once sat next to Max Verstappen in the Red Bull back in 2019, has now raced for the World Championship winning team Williams for three years now. He has a very soft personality off-track but on-track that man is a killer!
How did it all begin for Alex Albon?
Alex Albon began his Formula 1 career with Toro Rosso back in 2019, becoming the second Thai driver in F1. He was promoted to Red Bull in the same year. In 2020, Albon became the first Thai driver to get a podium in Formula 1 at the Tuscan GP. Sadly, for Alex, like his predecessor Pierre Gasly, the curse of the second Red Bull seat caught up with him by the end of the 2020 season, and he was demoted to reserve driver for Red Bull for the 2021 season.
Then came the seat at Williams…
In 2022, Alex Albon replaced George Russell at the Williams F1 team. But his luck wouldn’t turn so soon. Williams had comparatively the worst car on the grid and they only managed to get 8 points in the entire season, out of which Alex Albon contributed 4 points, as he managed to finish 19th in the championship.
The 2023 F1 season however was a bit different for Williams, they managed to get themselves off the floor and finish 7th in the Constructors’ Championship. For Alex, the 2023 season, gave him a 7th place highest finish and even earned him praise from Christian Horner for his performance.
At the end of the 2023 season, Alex Albon had scored 27 points for the team while his teammate had only scored 1!
Alex Albon suffered another case of bad luck as the Williams 2024 car was not too fast. He still scored a highest 7th place finish in Azerbaijan, where the crash between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz ended both their chances at a podium finish. Yet again, Alex Albon out scored both his teammates, as Logan Sargeant scored no points, while France Colapinto managed to score only 5 points.
Then came 2025…
In 2025, none of us knew that Williams would be fighting at the front. No one believed that it would be Williams Racing fighting in the top 8 in every other race. Maybe we all believed it could be Aston Martin due to Adrian Newey, but Williams was the last on anyone’s list of the top 10 finishers in 2025. But James Vowles has outdone the team and brought them from almost dead last to a team which now competes against the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes.
With Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon driving for Williams, they have already scored more points than they did in the entirety of 2024 and 2023 seasons in F1 combined.
Alex Albon has proved to be quite a challenge for the Smooth operator
Alex knew back in 2024 that Carlos would be his new teammate, and he never wavered once. He started this season with a 5th place finish, the highest he has finished since back in 2020.
Alex has been fighting against Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Kimi Antonelli (although a rookie, he is still in a Mercedes), and yet he has come out on top, in races like Australia, Miami, and Imola.
Alex Albon is a big softy off track but a stone-cold killer on track!
Alex Albon has been a very soft spoken, out-going driver off track. In all his interviews with the media, he has kept his calm and responded to the questions in a relaxed and easy to understand way which has allowed us to figure out the reasons behind questions like why it’s so difficult for the second driver at Red Bull to drive and so much more.
Alex has been quoted multiple times by the SkySports F1 commentator David Croft “Crofty” to describe that the Red Bull car is adjusted according to Max Verstappen and as the season progresses he wants the car to go faster so he requests more sensitivity and the sensitivity gets sharper and sharper, Max goes faster, but for the other driver, it becomes more and more difficult to catch up to Max as the car gets more and more on a knife edge to drive.
While Alex has been a big softy off-track, he isn’t one to take any prisoners. Alex Albon has extracted whatever has been possible from the Williams car, and before that the Red Bull car. Alex has outscored all his teammates except Max Verstappen. Even this year, Alex has outscored Carlos 6 times as he just qualified 9th at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Unfortunately for Alex, the Williams team uses Mercedes power units, which have been suffering from reliability issues. Although they still are not as bad as the Renault engines in the Red Bull back in 2017 and 2018.
After a tough two stop strategy as Alex came out in P20 with hard tires, from there he tried his best to regain track position but the Mercedes power unit would not have it. Chasing after Pierre Gasly, Alex had a few misfires in the power unit and eventually had to stop and retire the car at the escape road before the long back straight of the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit.
Although he has been nicknamed Albono, don’t count him out because of his sweet name and nature
Alexander Albon Ansusinha, the only Thai driver on the grid, has a lot of cold, calculated speed, he doesn’t just race, he calculates, executes and then wins points out of nowhere.
In the past years, his progress as a driver and his skill of pushing a car beyond its limits to earn points for himself and his team are a testament for the resilience and determination the 29-year old driver has.
Watch out for him this season. I believe he will be there in the top 7 in the Drivers’ Championship.