Publications
Partners
You’d be forgiven for never having heard of Alexander Albon before this year.
Just 18 months ago, the 23-year-old was ready to pack it all in.
Steered into a dead end with seemingly no way out, Albon’s dream of becoming a Formula One racing driver appeared to be over.
Supported by Red Bull through the early stages of his motor racing journey, things were looking good. But Red Bull pulled the rug out from underneath him in 2012, and he suddenly had to fend for himself.
It was a blow for a driver who dreamt of reaching F1 with one of the most successful teams in history.
Coupled with his mother, Kankamol, being sentenced to six years in prison for her part in a £7.5 million (R140 million) luxury car scam in the same year, the young driver’s life fell to pieces.
Nevertheless, he pushed to make an impression and was helped along by his racing driver dad, Nigel.
Moves into the right series at the right time accelerated Albon up the motor racing ladder, where he reached Formula Two in 2017, just one step away from F1.
But options in F1 were few and far between, so, desperate to keep racing and resigned to the fact he may never race in F1, he made the switch to all-electric racing series Formula E for this year.
Read: The Formula One story so far
But then, in late November, there came a phone call from Helmut Marko, the man in charge of Red Bull’s young driver initiative.
Following Daniel Ricciardo’s shock decision to leave the team, they chose to promote Pierre Gasly from junior F1 team Toro Rosso to partner with Max Verstappen this year.
This left a gap that needed filling and Albon was the man they wanted.
Six years after initially being booted out of the Red Bull system, they threw Albon a lifeline and called him back.
His Formula E contract was terminated before it had even started and the Thai national was confirmed at Toro Rosso alongside Daniil Kvyat.
It took only two races for Albon to score his first F1 points, and he has five top 10 finishes so far this season.
While Albon continued to impress in the junior team, Gasly was not delivering the goods in the senior team.
A huge gulf in performance compared with team-mate Verstappen was clear for all to see, and was emphasised in Hungary, where Verstappen battled for the win with Lewis Hamilton, while Gasly struggled to pass Carlos Sainz Jr’s McLaren for fifth place.
Despite the team openly claiming they would give the Frenchman until the end of the season to sort himself out, just a week into F1’s summer holiday the news broke that Albon and Gasly would swap places from the next race in Belgium.
He took to Instagram to say how pleased he was.
“Surreal to have been given this massive opportunity @redbullracing! Can’t thank you enough for believing in me and making this possible. It’s a big jump into the deep end, but I’ve got my swimming shorts on!
“Thanks to all the guys at @ToroRosso, especially Franz Tost [Toro Rosso team principal] for the massive opportunity in F1 and never-ending support throughout my first year! Now to focus for my first race with the team in Spa.”
And thus Albon’s meteoric rise to the summit of F1 was complete.
He went from a floundering career that F1 never looked to be a part of, to a coveted seat in one of the series’ three leading teams in just 18 months.
It was a move he had spoken about years earlier, when he was 14. Interviewed while still in the academy, he was asked if he saw himself in an F1 car at some point in the future.
“Obviously, there is a lot to do and I also have to have a lot of good luck, but hopefully Red Bull will put me through to F1.”
He now has his work well and truly cut out for him, as he’ll have to contend with Verstappen and must be able to mix it with the front-running Mercedes.
Albon only has the next nine races to convince Red Bull that they made the right choice in recalling him.
Gasly now has everything to prove as he pushes to reclaim his seat and Kvyat, who raced for the senior Red Bull team in 2015, is also vying to make his way back to the top.
With stiff competition coming from every angle, Albon has truly been thrown in at the deep end and will be expected to deliver results worthy of Red Bull – podium finishes at the very least.
He has two weeks before the Belgian Grand Prix, during which he has to settle into his new life at the sharp end of the F1 grid and get himself set for the opportunity of a lifetime.
