MPH: 'Alex Albon deserves a top F1 drive but, aged 27, the timing's all wrong'

Although there were some stand-out performances – such as matching Verstappen’s qualifying time around Suzuka – in his season-and-a-half in the senior team, he wasn’t yet ready to do full justice to that drive. Things might have been different if he’d won the 2020 season-opener in Austria, as looked likely until he and Lewis Hamilton collided as he was passing the older-tyred Mercedes and ended in the gravel trap. But generally, he was unable to consistently access his full ability so early in his F1 career and in tricky circumstances. So reluctantly, Red Bull stood him down. They really liked him, could see his potential, but getting hammered every weekend by one of history’s greatest drivers at the height of his own powers wasn’t really doing Albon or the team any favours. But they didn’t want to let him go and he was retained in the family, the team’s official reserve in ‘21.

If only the Red Bull opportunity had come along when he had a few seasons’ of F1 experience and in less of a knife-edge car. The timing just hadn’t worked out. Then the ’22 lifeline from Williams, which needed a quality replacement for the departing George Russell. It wasn’t a top drive, the car was slow and not easy, but it would allow him to continue to develop, now in a team focused fully around him. He has flowered in that environment and habitually delivers performances in both qualifying and race which flatter the car’s level. He’s could now really justify a place in a top team. But at 27 the timing is all wrong. Had he had the Williams drive first and the Red Bull subsequently, it would’ve been perfect.

He’s a central part of Williams, and the boss James Vowles is hoping to rebuild the team around him. Vowles described Albon’s performance in Canada this year – opportunistically using the brief window of slicks running in Q2 to go fastest there and make it through to Q3, way above the car’s station, then driving a superb defence against faster cars to finish seventh – as ‘the drive of a champion’. He elaborated on that in his recent interview with F1’s Beyond The Grid, saying: “He’s definitely bringing the car to the limit of its performance, which is what you’re looking for out of a driver. I think he’s very underrated and I’m incredibly happy that he’s here within our organisation today… He’s got leadership qualities to him, he’s got what it takes to bring us forward as an organisation. For the future, from where I am at the moment, I hope he’s very much a part of it.”

There is progress apparent in the team’s rebuilding but it’s a long-term project. The long competitive cycles of teams are often ill-matched to the more urgent imperative of a driver’s career. It’s that thing of timing again. If a Red Bull opportunity were to come his way again, he’s made no secret of his confidence of being ready for it this time around. That doesn’t mean he would expect to go in there and beat Max Verstappen but he knows he would give a far better representation of his true level this time around. Helmut Marko and Christian Horner still rate him highly and if there was a window, might they offer him a second opportunity? And if they did, should he take it?

If they did, what could Vowles do to try to retain him? It’s not fully in his hands and in in Spa Vowles related: “What I’ve done is show why we will be moving forward on a long term vision. And the best thing you can do is ask Alex, but you’ll find he’s very comfortable where he is at the moment because he can see we’ve delivered across the last six months and what the pathway is across the next few years as well. And if you try to promise what you can’t deliver, at one point it’ll be disrupted as this isn’t the reality you’ve promised them. So that’s why the whole way through I’ve been focusing on the long-term and a truthful analysis of the long-term, but allowing people to buy into that vision.”

That’s all great, but timing…