Road to Formula 1

He was born on 23 March 1996 in London. His father is the British racer Nigel Albon, who competed in the British Touring Car Championship and the Porsche Carrera Cup; his mother is from Thailand, and he races in the World Championship under the Thai flag. In 2010 he won the world and European titles in karting’s KF3 class. In 2012 he spent a single season in the Red Bull junior programme, after which the team parted ways with him.

From there he climbed the ladder without a big team behind him: Formula Renault 2.0, European Formula 3 and, in 2016, second place in GP3 behind his ART team-mate Charles Leclerc. He spent two seasons in Formula 2, finishing the championship 10th in 2017 and third with DAMS in 2018, behind George Russell and Lando Norris.

He was signed by Nissan e.dams for the 2018/19 Formula E season, but on 26 November 2018, less than three weeks before the first race, team and driver parted ways: Red Bull brought him back into its fold, and Toro Rosso named him as a race driver for 2019 alongside Daniil Kvyat.

Debut and Red Bull

He made his debut for Toro Rosso at the Australian Grand Prix on 17 March 2019 and finished 14th; his first points came two weeks later in Bahrain on 31 March, for ninth place. After 12 races Red Bull promoted him to the senior team in place of Pierre Gasly: his first race for Red Bull was the Belgian Grand Prix on 1 September 2019, where he finished fifth from 17th on the grid. In eight of his nine races for Red Bull in 2019 he finished in the top six.

The exception was the Brazilian Grand Prix on 17 November 2019: he was running second when Lewis Hamilton hit him on the penultimate lap. After the spin Albon finished 14th, while Hamilton was given a five-second penalty and admitted he was to blame. His first podium came on 13 September 2020 at the Tuscan Grand Prix at Mugello — third place from fourth on the grid — and on 29 November that year he was third again in Bahrain. He finished the 2020 championship seventh.

On 18 December 2020 Red Bull announced that Sergio Pérez would partner Max Verstappen in 2021, while Albon would stay with the team as test and reserve driver, focusing on preparing the 2022 car.

A reserve year and the DTM

He spent 2021 in the DTM, driving an AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 in AlphaTauri colours while also serving as Red Bull’s reserve driver. On 22 August 2021 at the Nürburgring he won the second race of the weekend from pole. On 8 September 2021 Williams announced that he would return to the World Championship in 2022 alongside Nicholas Latifi.

Williams

He scored his first points for Williams at the Australian Grand Prix on 10 April 2022 with 10th place. Later that season he missed the Italian Grand Prix: on the morning of 10 September 2022, the Saturday of the race weekend, he was taken to hospital with appendicitis, and Nyck de Vries stood in for him at Monza.

In 2023 he scored almost all of the Williams points for the season and finished the championship 13th; his best results were seventh places in Canada on 18 June and in Italy on 3 September. On 15 May 2024 he signed a multi-year contract with the team that runs into the era of the 2026 regulations.

Since 2025 his team-mate has been Carlos Sainz. Albon finished fifth in the new line-up’s first race, the Australian Grand Prix on 16 March 2025, and took three more fifth places — in Miami on 4 May, at Imola on 18 May and at Zandvoort on 31 August. He finished the 2025 championship eighth.

2026 season

In 2026 he races for Williams alongside Carlos Sainz. He was unable to start the Chinese Grand Prix on 15 March 2026 after a hydraulics failure on his laps to the grid. He scored his first points of the season in Miami on 3 May 2026 with 10th place, and on 7 June he finished eighth in Monaco.

It is the first season of the new technical regulations: power units that draw around half their output from the electrical side, active aerodynamics and 11 teams — Cadillac has joined the championship, and Sauber carries on under the Audi name.