Alexander Albon

At 28 years old, Alexander Albon has this physical status:

Early career

Albon started competitively racing karts in 2005, winning his first local Hoddesdon Championship and displaying his hometown Hoddesdon Championship. Albon debuted in the cadet class in 2006, finishing 1st at the Kartmasters British Grand Prix and 2nd in 2007. He rose to the KF3 class in 2008, where he remained until 2010. Albon captured the Kartmasters British Grand Prix, Formula Kart Stars Championship, KF Winter Series, Super 1 National KF3 Championship, CIK-FIA World Cup, and the CIK-FIA European Championships during this period. Albon qualified to KF1 in 2011 and ranked 2nd in the WSK Euro Series and 2nd at the CIK-FIA World Championship.

From karting Albon to Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup series, where he rode for EPIC Racing in 2012 alongside Kevin Giovesi, Konstantin Tereschenko, Kevin Jörg, Dennis Wusthoff, and Christof von Grunigen, finishing 38th out of 49 in the championship after having a tough year and being unable to score points.

Albon joined KTR in the 2013 Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 season, finishing 16th out of 36 runners in the championship, with Yu Kanamaru and Ignazio D'Agosto finishing 16th. Albon held one of the fastest lap times and one pole position in the 2013 season, both of whom appeared at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. He finished the 2013 season with 22 points. Albon had a much more fruitful year in 2014, alongside Gregor Ramsay, Jules Gounon, and Callan O'Keefe. He was unable to win any of the 14 races this season, but he did manage to gain one pole position at the Nürburgring and finished third in the drivers' championship by 117 points.

Albon, together with teammate Dorian Boccolacci, moved to European Formula 3, racing at Signature in 2015. He finished seventh overall, with two pole positions (scored at the Norisring), 5 podiums (including four rookie wins), and 187 points overall.

Albon participated in post-season testing with ART Grand Prix in December 2015. Albon raced for ART in the GP3. Albon won four titles and finished as runner-up in the championship to teammate Charles Leclerc.

Albon qualified in 2017 with ART. Nobuharu Matsushita, who at the time was also signed as a development driver for McLaren, will be his teammate for the season. He made his debut in Bahrain, where he started in ninth place on the starting grid for the feature race and finished 6th. Albon qualified third on the grid for the sprint, behind Luca Ghiotto and his colleague, Matsushita. Matsushita was forced to begin from the pitlane, promoted Albon to second, owing to mechanical difficulties. Albon didn't have a grip on the majority of the race and ended in 7th place.

Albon came in third on the provisional starting grid for the feature run in the Spanish round. Charles Leclerc led to a turn one but Ghiotto and Albon chastised him after locking up. Leclerc began to lean away from Ghiotto, who was immediately absorbed into Albon's clutches, eventually falling into the grips of Albon, who then turned to turn one and finished second place behind Ghiotto. On lap seven, Leclerc and Matsushita were withdrawn, leaving Albon with the lead of the contest. Due to engine issues, Sergio Canamasas' ride came to a halt on lap 10. Despite all of this, he did not pull off the plan to retire, but instead stayed on the track and gesturing to the marshals waiting for a push. The car's insecure situation started with the virtual safety system, then the security car itself. Leclerc and Ghiotto started to scythe through the pack as the race resumed. Although Oliver Rowland later coerced Albon to take the lead of the race, they did not have an imminent pitstop to make. Albon and Rowland were staging a comeback, with both drivers aiming for the podium in the latter stages of the competition, but Albon finished in fifth position after the race. Albon entered 4th on the grid and enjoyed a close contest with Leclerc for the majority of the race, and after fighting for several laps, Leclerc claimed fifth place in the sprint championship. Albon fell back in the race later in the season, finishing the season in 8th place.

Albon finished second on the grid in a time of 1:19.321 seconds at the Monaco round. Due to safety concerns regarding the circuit's short and tight nature, the grid was divided into two groups in qualifying. Albon competed in Group B' qualifying and set the fastest time in the category, only qualifying 12 hundredths of a second behind Leclerc who qualified in Group A. Leclerc led into the first corner after an aborted start due to Antonio Fuoco and Sean Gelael's engines stalling on the grid, followed by Albon. As Canamasas was spun, a concertina effect occurred at the Grand Hotel Hairpin, causing Gelael to lose his front wing and bring out a local yellow. Albon found himself later in the competition behind slower-moving Norman Nato and Jordan King, which eventually caused him to drop places, ending the race in a disappointing 4th place. Albon debuted 5th on the grid, and after a close run, he fell back to finish in 6th position. Albon was unable to participate in the Baku round of the Championship due to injury. Albon had a broken collarbone while riding a mountain biking training ride and was unable to participate due to the over-shoulder seat belts used in Formula 2.

Albon was back in action in the fifth round of the championship, with the former player's reaction to returning to action after breaking his collarbone was "a lot better" than he expected. Following an x-ray on the Tuesday, he reported that the bone was still "clearly broken" and that the most significant issue he was experiencing in the car was a "numb feeling" from the scar he suffered after successful surgery after the accident. Albon finished the practice session in 8th, proving that despite the injury, the possibility of his first podium appearance in Formula 2 was a possibility. Albon qualified in 4th place for the Feature Race, but later promoted to third on the provisional starting grid after Sérgio Sette Câmara was disqualified after the qualifying session after failing to provide the required 1 litre fuel sample. Albon finished the Feature Race in 5th place, after losing places to Oliver Rowland and Nicholas Latifi, who were both racing for DAMS), whose car showed a lot of energy. Albon began the race 4th on the grid and climbed to finish third in Formula 2, behind Artem Markelov. He would score another podium at Abu Dhabi's season-end sprint race later this year, finishing in second after being overtaken by Leclerc on the final lap. In his first F2 season, he came in 10th, scoring 86 points.

DAMS reported in April 2018 that they had signed Albon to partner Nicholas Latifi for the 2018 season. Despite being only confirmed for the first round, he was later announced as a full-time driver for the team the following month. He began the season with fourth place in Bahrain's feature series before finishing 13th in the sprint competition.

Albon moved from pole to win in the feature race and then followed it up with his first victory in F2, while in the sprint heat, he came in 13th.

Albon gained two more pole positions in Barcelona and Monaco in the coming season, but he came in fifth, behind Jack Aitken in the sprint. In Monaco, however, the Thai driver had a weekend to forget as he entered the pitlane collided with Nyck de Vries, spinning him around in the pitlane entrance, while in the sprint event, he collided with Campos' Roy Nissany approaching the Nouvelle Chicane.

After suffering an engine failure, Le Castellet's feature race would feature another retirement. He came in seventh place in the sprint, one place behind Latifi. Albon won the feature race at Silverstone before winning two more at the sprint race in the Hungaroring and the feature race at Sochi, finishing fifth in both races. A stall in Abu Dhabi's feature race ended his title chances; he finished fourteenth in the feature race and eighth in the sprint event, putting him third in the drivers' championship behind fellow future F1 drivers George Russell and Lando Norris.

Albon was signed by Nissan e.dams alongside Sébastien Buemi as one of the company's top pilots for the 2018–19 Formula E season, but he was released before the season to instead drive in Toro Rosso's 2019 Formula One season.

Oliver Rowland, a former F2 colleague who competed in the 2015 Punta del Este ePrix as an injury substitute for Mahindra Racing's Nick Heidfeld, was named in his place.

Formula One career

Albon had been released from his Nissan e.dams Formula E deal after rumors that he was supposed to sign for Scuderia Toro Rosso in Formula One. Toro Rosso revealed Albon would join the team in 2019 alongside Daniil Kvyat, and thus Albon's seven-year association with Red Bull, which had started seven years ago, was revived. Prince Bira is Thailand's second driver to compete in Formula One, and the first since he first competed in 1954.

In his first race, the Australian Grand Prix, Albon finished thirteenth and fourteenth. He earned his first points in the Bahrain Grand Prix, finishing ninth. In qualifying, a big crash forced him to leave qualifying and begin the race from the pit lane. He recovered in the fight to finish tenth and win the Driver of the Day award. For the first time at the Monaco Grand Prix, he participated in the third qualifying session (Q3) and finished eighth. Albon's first race retirement was exacerbated by the damage caused by contact with Antonio Giovinazzi on the first lap of the Canadian Grand Prix.

Albon's best qualifying result with Toro Rosso came in ninth place at the British Grand Prix, but he didn't gain a point in the competition. Albon took first place in the German Grand Prix for the sixteenth time. Toro Rosso and his teammates were able to finish fourth and then finish sixth, despite teammate Kvyat who claimed the team's first podium finish in over ten years.

Albon would be replacing Pierre Gasly and assisting Max Verstappen at the Belgian Grand Prix from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards, with Gasly returning to Toro Rosso following the Hungarian Grand Prix. "The team will use the next nine races to evaluate Alex's results in order to make an informed decision about who will drive alongside Max in 2020" says Red Bull.

Albon was forced to begin from the seventeenth position due to a power unit upgrade at the Belgian Grand Prix. After defeating Sergio Pérez on the final lap, he climbed to finish fifth in the championship. Albon finished fifth at the Russian Grand Prix in qualifying after placing sixth in sixth-place finishes at the Italian and Singapore Grand Prix. In qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix, Albon and Verstappen ran in a similar lap times, while Albon finished fourth in the series for the first time. Despite suffering in the first lap and making three pit stops at the latter, he came in fifth at both the Mexican and United States Grand Prix. On the penultimate lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix, he was in second place, but Lewis Hamilton was slashed by him during an overtaking attempt, dropping Albon to fourteenth place at the finish.

Albon earned 92 points in his first season in the World Drivers' Championship. At the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony, he was named Rookie of the Year.

Albon and Verstappen are also racing for Red Bull in 2020. Albon came in third place in the season-opening Austrian Grand Prix's third season on new soft-compound tyres, behind the leading Mercedes cars on older hard tyres. Albon attempted to overtake Lewis Hamilton, but the two teams kept in touch, throwing Albon into the dust. Albon later suffered from an electrical malfunction, which was blamed on the crash by engine manufacturer Honda. In the final laps of the Styrian Grand Prix, he came under pressure from Racing Point's Sergio Pérez, but he held fourth place after the drivers made contact, damaging Pérez's front wing. The Red Bull expressed skepticism over Albon's lack of speed in the race. At the Hungarian Grand Prix, he began thirteenth and finished fifth.

Albon spent a lot of time in preparation for the British Grand Prix, finishing twelfth. He earned a point of responsibility for causing a collision with Kevin Magnussen and was forced to the back of the field before finishing eighth in the standings. He qualified fifth for the Belgian Grand Prix, but he finished sixth after being led by Renault's Esteban Ocon on the final lap. He was 15th at the Italian Grand Prix, despite suffering collision injury and a time penalty on the first lap. Albon claimed his second podium appearance at the Tuscan Grand Prix by defeating Daniel Ricciardo in the closing laps, the first podium for a Thai Formula One racer.

Albon claimed only one point in the next four races; he finished tenth at the Russian Grand Prix, collided with former teammate Daniil Kvyat, and later retired with a cracked radiator at the Eifel Grand Prix, falling to fifteenth at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix due to a spin with five laps remaining. After Sergio Pérez retired from third place due to an engine failure, he took his second podium finish in Formula One.

Albon finished seventh in the World Drivers' Championship, scoring 105 of Red Bull's 319 points.

Albon was demoted to the role of test and reserve driver with Red Bull for 2021, his race seat being taken by Sergio Pérez. Albon said "it hurts," after his demo, but that he wanted to return to a race seat for 2022. Since completing his 2021 DTM campaign, he took on a coaching role for AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda, starting in the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix.

Albon returned to a Formula One race seat with Williams in 2022, replacing George Russell and teammate Nicholas Latifi. Albon retained "a link to Red Bull" and that the team had the option to recall him for 2023, according to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.

Albon won the Bahrain Grand Prix for the first time and finished third in his first race for Williams. He was in his twelfth place in the final laps of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but he was unable to finish after a collision with Lance Stroll for which Albon was barred. He earned his first point for Williams at the Australian Grand Prix by finishing tenth; he started the race from last place and made his mandatory pit stop with just one lap remaining. He started last at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix due to a brake malfunction in qualifying, but he recovered to finish 11th in the series. Albon qualified eighteenth for the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, his second points score of the season, earning his second points score of the season. Since being hit from behind by Sebastian Vettel, Albon was involved in a first lap collision with Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon at the British Grand Prix. He was hospitalized for precautionary checks and sustained no serious injuries.

For the first time with Williams, he qualified ninth and debuting sixth due to grid penalties for other drivers. He came in tenth in the class, earning a point. Albon was forced to leave the Italian Grand Prix due to appendicitis, and Nyck de Vries replaced it. Albon had anaesthetic-related respiratory failure following his surgery, but the patient was recovering well. He returned to the Singapore Grand Prix only three weeks later, but he had to recover from being trapped with the barriers. He then resigned from a collision with Kevin Magnussen during the first lap of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Albon was employed by Williams in 2023 on a multi-year deal.

Source