Alex Albon has been in Formula 1 for over half a decade now and has enjoyed mixed levels of success across three teams.
His rapid rise during his rookie season led him to Red Bull before he came crashing back down to earth after being dropped by them in 2020.
He landed on his feet again at Williams, where he established himself as the clear team leader, and it looks like he has well and truly found his forever home.
Whether or not he will ever challenge for victories and championships is up to the development of his team and whether team boss James Vowles can truly lead them to the promised land.
Alex Albon ‘removed’ F1 lap delta
Modern Formula 1 cars are equipped with all sorts of clever systems which help them go fast and inform the driver of how it’s operating.
One of the recent adaptations is the addition of a time delta, to inform the driver whether they are going faster or slower than they did on their fastest lap of any given run.
It’s something which Albon told Tom Clarkson in a video for the Pirelli YouTube channel, that he had removed from his car.
“You start to create an inner time clock and you start to really appreciate ‘does this line feel quicker?’ As I went through into Formula 3, Formula 2, Formula 1 you lose that,” he said.
“Because you have the live time of your lap on your dash the whole time. You end up looking it, you overdrive one corner, you try to make it up on the next corner or this kind of stuff happens.
“So I removed it, and I went back to karting style.”
Albon faces a new challenge in 2025
The Thai driver will face one of his toughest tests in Formula 1 next year when Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz joins Williams on a multi-year deal.
Since leaving Red Bull, his two teammates have been largely inexperienced behind the wheel and not of race-winning pedigree at that stage.
Franco Colapinto could yet go on to enjoy more success, but he’s early on in his development and it’s hard to judge whether he’s good enough to be placed in that bracket at this stage.
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Sainz however, has gone head-to-head with Max Verstappen, fared well against Charles Leclerc and is a dependable commodity.
He isn’t going to spare an inch for Albon, and if the Grove-based outfit keeps its rate of improvement up, it could be on the midfield’s most fascinating battles in 2025.
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