Alex Albon driver profile: dropped by Red Bull, rebuilt at Williams
Alexander Albon was dropped by Red Bull at the end of 2020 and had no Formula 1 seat for a year. Six seasons later he is the driver Williams builds its weekends around, and he has just signed again. Very few careers survive that kind of demotion. His is worth understanding because of how he did it.
Alex Albon: Fast Facts
- Full name: Alexander Albon Ansusinha
- Date of birth: 23 March 1996
- Born in: London, England
- Races under: the Thai flag
- F1 debut: 2019 Australian Grand Prix, Toro Rosso
- Previous teams: Toro Rosso, Red Bull Racing
- 2026 team: Atlassian Williams-Mercedes
- Car number: 23
- Team-mate: Carlos Sainz
The karting class that produced a generation
Albon was born in London to a British father and a Thai mother, and races under the Thai flag. He came up through European karting in the same age group as Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, beating both often enough that nobody in that paddock was surprised when he reached Formula 1.
Getting there took longer than it did for them. He finished runner-up in GP3 in 2016 and third in Formula 2 in 2018, and by the end of that year he had given up waiting and signed a Formula E contract with Nissan e.dams.
Then Toro Rosso called. He got out of the Formula E deal and made his Formula 1 debut in 2019 instead.
Promoted too fast, dropped too hard
Twelve races into that rookie season, Red Bull moved him into the senior team alongside Verstappen.
That seat has a reputation, and it earned it again. Albon scored two podiums and was regularly quick, but the car was built around a team-mate operating at an extreme, and the gap in qualifying was the number that mattered. He was out at the end of 2020.
What he did next is the interesting part. Rather than disappearing, he spent 2021 as Red Bull’s reserve and raced in DTM, kept himself sharp and visible, and took the Williams seat for 2022 when it came.
The benchmark at Williams
Williams in 2022 was the slowest team on the grid. Albon spent those seasons doing something that does not show up in championship tables: extracting points from a car that had no business scoring them, and doing it often enough that the paddock revised its opinion of him.
By the time Carlos Sainz arrived from Ferrari, Albon was not the driver being replaced. He was the reference the new signing would be measured against.
In August 2026 Williams extended his contract, which tells you how the team sees the next phase of the project.
What Albon’s career actually shows
The lesson people take from Albon is usually about resilience, and that is fine as far as it goes.
The more useful lesson is about context. The same driver looked ordinary next to Verstappen in a car tuned to Verstappen, and looked excellent at Williams where the car was built around him. Judging a driver by one season alongside a generational team-mate is how teams lose good people.
Red Bull learned that lesson expensively. Williams has been the beneficiary for five years.
For current standings and the latest, see our Formula 1 coverage. Profile last updated 2 September 2026.