Nationality: British/Thai
Birthday: 23 March 1996
Current team: Williams
Previous teams: Toro Rosso, Red Bull
Number: 23
Strengths: Overtaking, tyre wear, strategic decisions, race pace
Weaknesses: Inconsistent, crash-prone at times, track-dependent
Strongest tracks: Britain, Italy, Belgium
Weakest tracks: Spain, Brazil, Bahrain, Qatar
Statistics
Grand Prix wins: 0
Pole Positions: 0
Fastest laps: 1
Podiums: 2
World Championships: 0
F1 teammate record H2H
Total Q record: 70-51
Total R record: 78-49
| Teammate | Q record | R record |
| Sainz (2025-26) | 9-18 | 15-12 |
| Colapinto (2024) | 7-2 | 4-4 |
| Sargeant (2023-24) | 31-0 | 29-5 |
| Latifi (2022) | 17-1 | 16-4 |
| Verstappen (2019-20) | 0-25 | 9-17 |
| Kvyat (2019) | 6-5 | 5-7 |
Pre-F1 championship results
3rd in Formula 2 (2018)
10th in Formula 2 (2017)
2nd in GP3 (2016)
7th in European F3 (2015)
3rd in Eurocup Formula Renault (2014)
Career analysis
Alex Albon’s career has been up and down. He was great in karting and fought Charles Leclerc impressively in the 2016 GP3 season and finished second in the standings. He followed that up two years later by finishing third in Formula 2, only behind star drivers George Russell and Lando Norris. A fairly impressive record, considering the talent he went up against.
When given the chance at Toro Rosso in F1, Albon was instantly as fast as the more experienced Daniil Kvyat. Because of this, he was promoted, perhaps prematurely, to Red Bull in the middle of his rookie season.
Facing Max Verstappen as a mere beginner was an extremely difficult challenge. Albon did his best for a year and a half before ultimately being dropped, as he only scored 2 podiums at Red Bull.
This could have been the end of Albon’s F1 career. Red Bull did not put him back into their junior team but instead sent him to DTM, where Albon’s performance was fairly average. Williams had the courage to bring him back in 2022, and since then, Albon has been incredible. The Thai driver has faced some easy – often inexperienced – teammates, but he has beaten them all convincingly. His first major challenge at Williams came last year when Carlos Sainz arrived.
Initially, Albon appeared to have the upper hand on Sainz. He had an incredible start to the year and build up a huge point lead to his teammate.
Part of that story was that Sainz took a while to settle into the team and also faced much more bad luck. As the year progressed, Sainz caught up entirely and clearly looked like the faster driver of the two, although Albon still had more total points.
Now we have a bit of a funny situation at Williams. Albon and Sainz are both very talented drivers. If one of them ever wants to advance to a better team, it will be necessary to beat the other convincingly. So Albon will absolutely have to beat Sainz if he ever wants to move to a top team.
They are very different drivers, though. While Sainz is consistent, Albon runs hot and cold. He has excellent pace and performs well in qualifying. In races, he’s even better. The Thai is an expert in managing the tyres, making good decisions in terms of strategy, and he knows how to overtake well. Sometimes, he has dragged the Williams to positions the car didn’t merit.
But Albon is also inconsistent, and there are some races where he seems to disappear. Perhaps he will be more motivated if the car is stronger and he has a highly rated teammate to compete with.
Albon is very track-dependent as well. He performs best at high-speed traditional circuits, is mediocre at temporary tracks and street circuits, and weak at low-speed circuits and sectors with slow corners. He has to improve on this, and perhaps he will, as he is entering his peak.
