Alexander Albon: There's nothing I'd do differently at Red Bull

Telegraph

5 days ago

In 2018, George Russell, Lando Norris and Alexander Albon finished first, second and third respectively in the Formula Two championship. The following year, they made their debuts in Formula One. Russell and Norris have since emerged as two of the finest drivers on the grid at Mercedes and McLaren and have 12 race wins and 57 podiums between them.
Albon's path has been rougher. The 29-year-old had a tremendous first 12 races for Toro Rosso in his debut year. So good, in fact, that he was chosen by Red Bull to replace the under-performing Pierre Gasly alongside Max Verstappen midway through 2019. Albon fared better than his predecessor in what is surely the toughest job in F1, but was dropped at the end of 2020 after 26 races with the team.
After that came a year out of F1, racing touring cars, before returning to the grid with Williams in 2022 when he replaced Mercedes-bound Russell. Since then he has steadily rebuilt his reputation whilst the team have done similar, both rebounding from turbulent times. After 13 rounds of this season Albon has 54 points and nine top-10 finishes. The only men above him in the standings drive either a McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes or Red Bull.
Is this, then, the high point of his time in the sport? 'I'd say so, I think it's my best season,' Albon tells Telegraph Sport. 'We've had quite a few challenging races this year where it's been in mixed conditions as well. I think about Melbourne, Miami, Spa, Silverstone, and we always seem to have been able to get away with good points.
'I am very happy. I don't think it's been such a different year to my other years, more just that the team itself has made a big step forward and I've been able to execute races with good points.'
Albon has come a long way since those difficult times at Red Bull. The second seat at that team would be very few drivers' idea of a good time right now. It has been a problem since Daniel Ricciardo left for Renault. This year Liam Lawson lasted two races and incumbent Yuki Tsunoda has finished no higher than 12th since the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in May. All despite Verstappen's persistent brilliance. Does Albon, then, reflect on those 181 points and two podiums across 26 races in a more favourable light now?
'My time there – it's quite difficult to judge. I had 1½ years in the car and it was a difficult car at the time to drive. I was relatively inexperienced for the role, let's say,' he says. 'That's in many ways external as [to] how people view my Red Bull job.
'Realistically it is a difficult seat. You are up against one of the hardest, most talented drivers possibly to ever have been in Formula One. We are lucky that he's here racing on the grid with us now and I was very inexperienced at that time,' he says.
Albon is frank about his deficiencies in those seasons, despite a tricky car. In 2020 he scored 105 points to Verstappen's 214. Last season Sergio Pérez, who replaced Albon at Red Bull, scored 152 to champion Verstappen's 437. In fairness, Albon was perhaps a victim of his own success after proving so adaptable and fundamentally quick in that initial stint at Toro Rosso.
'I didn't understand what areas I needed to improve on, whether it was on track, off track, my feedback; the engineering side of Formula One I wasn't up to speed with,' he says.
'You look at it back, it was a massive talking point. I remember my second race in 2020 is kind of what Liam had, people calling for my head and I was finishing P5 and P6 in most of my races,' Albon recalls.
'Now I am far more of a complete package so there's a lot of ifs and buts and maybes of my time at Red Bull. But when I look back at it, there's nothing I could have done differently. Experience is learned, it is not earned. You just have to go through these tough times and understand it, which took time for me.'
Time and experience have served Albon well. With 117 grand prix starts he is now able to get the best from the Williams FW47, which is a more predictable and stable beast than its immediate predecessors.
In previous seasons, Williams's limitations on certain tracks could make scoring points almost impossible. Albon says that they have managed to 'iron out' some of the negative DNA and characteristics of those cars. This means that he can trust the car he has beneath him more. In 2024 there were just four top-10 finishes. This year he has already had nine, not that he gives any extra validity to his performances.
'A super weekend last year would have been P10, P9. A tough weekend would have been P17, P18. This year it's more like if you have a good weekend it could be a P6, P7, and then a difficult weekend is P11, P12,' he says.
'When I joined Williams in 2022, it was clear to me that the perception of what a good weekend is is totally different to what it is to other people. It took me a while to adjust to it as well.
'A great executed weekend feeling like I am driving well, performing well, could have been a P17, P18, in fact. No one was excited about it – the team wasn't excited about it, I wasn't excited about it.'
There is reason to be excited now. This year was always going to be an important one for Albon's reputation. Whilst he has been comfortably the best Williams driver since he joined, the benchmark of his team-mates was not high from 2022 to 2024.
First there was Nicholas Latifi and then Logan Sargeant, who both ended up well out of their depth and ultimately out of F1. In 2025 the arrival of Carlos Sainz – a four-time race winner who pushed Charles Leclerc close in their four seasons together at Ferrari – means there is nowhere to hide. So far he has measured up well against the Spaniard, scoring 54 points to 16 and leading 10-6 in qualifying.
'We've been very positive, he's been helping me out even in races like Melbourne, for example,' Albon says of their relationship.
When I put it to him that Sainz is having a better season than his results show, he is unsure. Not because he disagrees with the premise, but because it is not something he pays attention to.
'I'm trying to even think about it, but I am so on my own side of my own performance, that it's hard for me to say,' he says.
Albon makes it clear that he gives no credence to the perception of his performances or his reputation. Neither does he give any more validity to his performances just because he has scored points. He also pays no attention to the noise that inevitably comes with being an F1 driver.
'I do ignore it – it's not 'try to' ignore. Everything about racing is internal so how you perform and execute a weekend, how you drive, even in terms of pushing the car to the limit and staying in your zone and in your flow state, let's say, it all comes from focusing on yourself.
'Of course, in moments, I will look across the data and, for example, compare with Carlos and figure out where I need to improve as a driver. But for the most part it's just making sure I am delivering the best I can.
'The results, whether it's P5 or a P11 in Bahrain, it's still the same, it's still the same process. I guess you get rewarded differently in terms of a points system, but I still go about my racing in the same way.'