Alexander Albon said his fourth season in Formula 1 was his best yet, after single-handedly scoring enough points to earn Williams seventh place in the constructors’ standings.
In his second season at the team, Albon scored 27 of their 28 points. That was enough to keep them ahead of main rivals AlphaTauri, who fell short of overhauling them in the final race of the year despite a strong end to the season.Albon joined Williams last year, after being demoted from a race seat to a reserve driver role by Red Bull the year before. In his comeback season he scored just four points. This year he scored more than six times as many, despite Williams ending the development of their FW45 car early on to focus on their 2024 design.
“I’m very proud of my performance,” said Albon of his 2023 efforts. “I’m not the most arrogant person, I would say, but I will give myself credit.
“I feel like I’ve had a very strong season. I felt like most of my races haven’t been simple. There’s been races where we’ve been fighting, fighting, fighting the whole time. But I enjoy it.
“That’s the environment that I thrive in. For me it’s been my strongest year in F1 and that connection that I have with the team has really helped that. I feel like that’s where we’ve been able to execute everything, all the races we’ve done so well in.”
Albon’s points haul resulted in Williams’ highest placing in the constructors’ championship since 2017, when the team was a far more regular points threat, only failing to score three times across a 20-race campaign.
A more competitive car would improve Williams’ chances of making the points in more races now, and Albon says it is the team’s execution of race weekends that has been enabling it to beat rivals when the potential has been there to score.
“Our car does have its moments, and one of our biggest focuses next year is to stop these weaknesses in our car,” he said. “But the execution has been very strong, I think, and we’ve made the most of our opportunities. So that’s why I believe we’ve been able to actually get P7.
“When we’ve had the car to do it, we’ve made sure we score the points. I think others have either had a blunder with strategy, or whatever it may have been, just to miss out on points.”
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Todfod (@todfod)
28th November 2023, 10:44
His stock has risen massively this season. Relentless performances on every Saturday to push the car as high up the grid as possible, and some great defensive drives on Sunday to bring home the points. If he manages a similar performance next season, there’s no doubt that he’ll be on the radar of the top 3 teams for 2025 and beyond.
BasCB (@bascb)
28th November 2023, 11:27
I agree with the assessment there @todfod. He really showed he is fast, he can race and he can bring the results home when the car gives him a chance to do anything this season.
dot_com (@dot_com)
28th November 2023, 14:32
I think he’s been given a great opportunity to thrive, away from the pressures of the Red Bull camp. He seems to gel really well with the team. I hear alot of people say that he is putting himself on the radar of ‘bigger teams’ but williams could be on their way up and he might do better to build that team around him. He’s in a great position to lead that resurgence.
melanos
28th November 2023, 11:37
A decent replacement for Checo?
dot_com (@dot_com)
28th November 2023, 14:34
That seat didn’t really work out well for him last time around. I can’t ever see him going back to Red Bull.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
28th November 2023, 15:30
Yes, it’s a risky bet cause I’m not sure he can adapt to the red bull car; perez has been terrible this year, but at least performed at bottas level the other years, which is not to be said for albon and gasly at red bull back when ricciardo left.
If however he manages to convert this performance to red bull, then he should be better than perez.
Jere (@jerejj)
29th November 2023, 6:20
melanos He already had his chance, as Marko pointed out earlier this year, not to mention Red Bull isn’t known to give second chances in their main team to demoted drivers.
He performed worse than Perez & even worse than Gasly in comparison.
Alesici
28th November 2023, 19:58
This year Albon has consistently been millimetrically perfect, pushing his lines to the edge of the track limits further, and more consistently accurately than any driver I’ve ever observed. I watched pretty the majority of the Canadian GP watching him from the in car camera behind him, and was shocked by how clinical he was.
When he’s been penalised for track limits, unlike with other drivers, it was often so marginal that the steward’s judgement had tended to get questioned.
Nick T.
29th November 2023, 0:06
I love Albon, but that’s a low bar. I wish we had an actual benchmark next to him instead of a driver so low in capacity, he (Logan) didn’t even start understanding he could make meaningful adjustments inside the car until there was three races to go. I like Logan, but I think he’s hopeless as an F1 driver.