Alex Albon will continue to drive for Williams on a multi-year deal after this season as he cleaves ties with Red Bull.
Current Williams driver Alex Albon has confirmed that he is not going to be a part of the Red Bull driver program after the end of the current F1 season.
Albon made his debut back in 2019 with Red Bull’s junior team Torro Rosso.
Albon impressed in the first half of his season alongside Danil Kvyat. Pierre Gasly on the other was recently promoted to the Red Bull racing team alongside Max Verstappen following his successful period in Torro Rosso. The Frenchman was struggling to keep up with Verstappen in Red Bull.
At last, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko admitted that the move to Promote Gasly was “premature“.
Gasly was demoted back to the Faenza-based squad and was eventually replaced by Albon at Red Bull.
Albon showed impressive signs in the latter part of the season. The team could have even secured a possible 1-2 hadn’t it been for Sir Lewis Hamilton wiping Albon out in Brazil in 2019.
2020 was a rather difficult year for the Thai-Briton. He was hugely off-pace than Verstappen who was challenging the dominating Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Bottas again and again.
He was replaced by Sergio Perez at the end of the season. Albon took a year off racing in the DTM series before announcing his return with Williams.
“I’m a total Williams driver now” – Alex Albon
Red Bull loaned Albon out to Williams for the 2022 season. He has scored 3 points this season and is 18th on the Drivers standings in a car that is arguably the slowest on the grid.
The 26-year-old recently signed a contract extension with Williams. This means he will drive for the team in 2023 and beyond indicating that his ties with red bull are all but done now.
“That’s pretty much it now, I’m a total Williams driver,”
Albon told in an interview.
“I had a link with Red Bull through this year, I still have a great relationship with Red Bull.
Like Williams, they gave me a chance in Formula 1, and I really enjoy the people there. They’ve always been really supportive to me, but now it’s more of a focus with Williams.”
Albon was a reserve driver for Red Bull while he was driving in DTM last season.
Alex is delighted to see Red Bull’s success
Red Bull is leading the constructors standings by 121 points and has shown strong performance throughout this season.
Albon is also quite happy to see his former team achieve such great success after years of struggling in the turbo hybrid era against their rival Mercedes.
“Max, Red Bull, they’ve really hit their stride in the last couple of years. They’ve always been good at regulation changes historically, and even the stuff they did with Honda and going into the new era with their Powertrains, it’s impressive,”
he added.
“They’re really creating their own team.
“For sure, I don’t think it’s going to be a runaway – we know what Mercedes can do and what Ferrari have got, they still have a very strong car – but [Red Bull] have the upper hand at the moment.”
Albon’s teammate Nicholas Latifi’s contract expires at the end of this year. He is yet to get a contract extension. Reports indicate that the Candian is all but set to lose his seat after this season.
There are multiple possibilities and drivers on the hunt for the seat alongside Albon.
Current Formula 2 driver Logan Sargeant and former Formula E world champion Nyck de Vries are also in the hunt. Mick Schumacher and Daniel Ricciardo are also indicated to be possible contenders for the seat.
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