Five worst moments of Alex Albon’s F1 career from Red Bull axe to costly Lewis Hamilton crash

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Alex Albon has developed a reputation for being one of the best midfield drivers in F1, but his career has also yielded a number of low moments since his debut back in 2019.

Red Bull gifted Albon his Formula 1 breakthrough with their junior team, Toro Rosso, in 2019 when the doors to the pinnacle of motorsport had seemed shut to him. Albon had agreed to race for Nissan in Formula E, as well, before a chance then arose to replace Brendon Hartley.

Albon’s U-turn on a deal to drive for Nissan in the all-electric series also paid off again when he replaced Pierre Gasly in the main Red Bull team only 13 rounds into his rookie F1 season. But joining Red Bull ultimately led to one of the worst moments of Albon’s F1 career to date.

Red Bull left Alex Albon without a seat after dropping him after the 2020 F1 season

Gasly’s difficulties adapting after replacing Daniel Ricciardo in the main Red Bull team in the 2019 F1 season convinced the Milton Keynes outfit to promote Albon from Toro Rosso after the summer. Yet while Albon’s race pace was often impressive, he often lacked in qualifying.

READ MORE: Alex Albon’s best moments in F1, from his first podium to his greatest races

Albon’s difficulties unleashing the ultimate performance in Red Bull’s car continued in 2020, as well. So, despite the London-born Thai scoring his first two career Grand Prix podiums in 2020, Red Bull demoted Albon to a reserve driver role for 2021 and they hired Sergio Perez.

The 2020 Russian Grand Prix and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix were prime examples for why Red Bull felt they could no longer persist with Albon. While Max Verstappen qualified P2 in Sochi and P3 at Imola for Red Bull, Albon only managed P10 and P6 for those two rounds.

Albon also qualified 1.141s slower than Verstappen in Sochi, before finishing the Russian GP in P10 after starting from P15 due to a grid penalty for changing his gearbox. Red Bull were even left to watch Albon finish last in the 2020 Emilia Romagna GP, after he spun whilst P5.

But as Red Bull only announced Perez’s signing in December 2020 following his release by Racing Point, Albon could not secure another seat for 2021. Instead, he spent the year as a reserve driver for both Red Bull teams and dovetailed his duties with a season in the DTM.

Albon later said on the Beyond The Grid podcast in 2022 about his Red Bull exit: “It killed me. It killed me, it was terrible. It was one of those things, it got announced that I wasn’t going to be a racing driver pretty late, I think it was December.

“They still believed in me and still trusted me, Christian [Horner] and Helmut [Marko], everyone at Red Bull, and I still have a great relationship with them. But on my side, it was more or less like, ‘I want to be in F1. I feel like I’m the hungriest driver I know’.”

Lewis Hamilton ‘destroyed’ Alex Albon’s F1 career in the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix

How Albon’s F1 career with Red Bull played out may have been very different were it not for the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix and Lewis Hamilton crashing into the London-born Thai. Albon lost what might have been his first-ever Formula 1 podium due to a collision with the Briton.

Albon had been Red Bull’s sole charger since Lap 11/71 in Austria that year after Verstappen suffered a suspected engine failure. Verstappen had been chasing Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas in the lead with Albon in P4, before the Dutchman was forced to pull up and out of the race.

Laps ticked by and Albon looked comfortable in P3, although he lacked the pace to run with the Mercedes pair of Bottas and Hamilton. Yet Albon gained another chance when Williams ace George Russell hit trouble on L51, only for Racing Point’s Perez to jump him in the pits.

Albon quickly dispatched Perez upon the restart only for another safety car period to start, after Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen crashed. This time, Albon had Hamilton in his sights for the restart, and he sensed his chance to overtake the Briton around the outside at Turn 4.

But Hamilton refused to give Albon an easy run, and the Briton’s trajectory meant he then clipped the Red Bull racer’s rear-right tyre and spun the London-born Thai. Hamilton got a five-second penalty for causing the collision, but it did Albon no favours as he later retired.

Then-Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko held the incident against Hamilton for the following year, as he later described the crash as the moment that destroyed Albon’s career. Marko even thought Albon could have won the 2020 Austrian GP were it not for their crash.

“Turn 4 is famous,” Marko told Motorsport-Total in 2021. “That’s where Hamilton destroyed Albon’s career. If Hamilton had not sent him out there in 2020, Albon would have won the race. Then things might have been very different, because your mentality and self-confidence develop very differently.”

Lewis Hamilton cost Alex Albon his first F1 career podium in the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix

Hamilton had already denied Albon one potential podium finish before their incident in the 2020 Austrian GP. Sao Paulo also saw Hamilton hand Albon heartbreak in the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix when the Briton took the Red Bull racer out of a possible P2 finish on Lap 70/71.

Albon had jumped ahead of Hamilton under a late safety car after Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc collided right behind the London-born Thai at Turn 4 on Lap 66. But his chance to reach the rostrum went up in smoke when Albon tried to use a wider line at T10.

Hamilton saw his chance to reclaim P2 when Albon went high, but the Mercedes man could not get his car to the apex before the Red Bull racer then turned in. They were both at least somewhat at fault, but the race stewards later handed Hamilton a five-second time penalty.

The penalty for Hamilton was of little comfort to Albon, as he fell to P15 as the final car still on the lead lap. Yet what Hamilton’s post-race penalty did do was promote Carlos Sainz into third place for McLaren after the chequered flag to secure his first career Formula 1 podium.

Williams withdrew Logan Sargeant from the 2024 Australian GP after Alex Albon’s crash in practice

Albon made his Formula 1 return after being axed by Red Bull with Williams in 2022, when a seat became spare in Grove after Mercedes promoted Russell to replace Bottas. Williams hit the jackpot by acquiring Albon, as well, as he quickly emerged as the team’s new lead driver.

But Albon’s time at Williams has not only featured high moments, with a number of lows on his CV in Grove, too. Arguably, the 2024 F1 Australian Grand Prix is the lowest moment that Albon has endured as a Williams driver, after his mistakes effectively left them with one car.

Albon wrote off one of Williams’ chassis when he crashed at Turn 6 during the first practice session in Melbourne in 2024. He had to sit out FP2 as a result of the crash and as Williams did not have a spare chassis, team principal James Vowles opted to bench Logan Sargeant.

Yet Albon would not reward Williams’ decision to withdraw Sargeant from the Australian GP in 2024, as they viewed the London-born Thai as their better hope for points. Albon almost crashed in qualifying for the 2024 Australian GP en route to P12, and ended the race in P11.

Alex Albon had to sit out the 2024 Sao Paulo Grand Prix after crashing in qualifying

Brazil saw another of Albon’s worst moments as a Formula 1 driver, this time for Williams, at the 2024 Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Williams were forced to withdraw Albon from the main race that season after he crashed in qualifying, as they did not have enough time to repair his car.

F1 had to postpone qualifying for the 2024 Sao Paulo GP to the Sunday morning due to rain, and conditions were still perilous when Q1 began. Williams soon saw Franco Colapinto (who had replaced Sargeant mid-season) bring out the first red flags when he crashed at Turn 3.

Albon also caused a red flag stoppage in Q3 when he crashed heavily at Turn 1 after drifting marginally onto the painted white line on the outside of the track, which pitched him into a spin and then the wall. The damage on the left-hand side of his car was too much to repair.

The woe was not over for Williams at the 2024 Sao Paulo GP, either, as Colapinto crashed in the race, as well. Albon and Colapinto’s incidents cost Williams a seven-figure repair bill in Brazil in 2024, where Alpine secured a double podium and passed Williams in the standings.