2023 Formula 1 driver rankings #6: Alexander Albon

Formula 1

20th December 2023, 7:1520th December 2023, 13:13 | Written by Will Wood

Last year, driving the slowest car on the grid, in his first season with Williams after a year out of Formula 1, Alexander Albon was easily the most outstanding driver towards the back end of the field.

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Heading into year two with new confidence, a new team principal and a fast new car, Albon looked to lead his lowly team from the bottom of the standings at long last.

He did just that. Almost single-handedly, in fact.

Albon’s 2022 season had been defined by him sniping crucial points on the rare occasions the opportunities presented themselves. But in 2023, Williams’ FW45 was a much more capable car than its predecessor and with the field so close together through the season, that gave Albon many more chances to compete for points over the year.

He happily took them, securing seven top ten finishes over the season and missing out in 11th three further times. That rewarded him with a total of 27 points by the end of the year, giving Williams their best constructors’ championship finish since 2017 in seventh and putting him 13th in the drivers’ standings – ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and behind the two Alpine drivers to effectively earn the crown of ‘king of the lower-midfield’.

Alexander Albon, Williams, Circuit of the Americas, 2023 — OOn race day, Albon often had a queue of cars in his mirrors

What stood out most about Albon was not just that he took points, but how. From as early as the opening round in Bahrain, he demonstrated a near-unflappable ability to absorb pressure from rivals over endless laps. He held off Pierre Gasly through the middle phase of the race in Sakhir before fending off Tsunoda in the closing laps to kick off 2023 with a point for tenth place. He took another top ten finish in the Baku sprint race with ninth place, missing out on a second point due to the sprint race points system.

But Albon’s most memorable giant-killing performance of the year came in Canada, where he exploited the strengths of his Williams to reach Q3 and then brilliantly executed a bold one-stop strategy to first keep George Russell’s Mercedes, then Esteban Ocon’s Alpine behind him despite them having DRS for 24 of the final 25 laps of the grand prix to record his best ever finish for Williams in seventh. There were perhaps greater heroics in Silverstone the following month when he beat both Ferraris home to the chequered flag by holding off Charles Leclerc with very smart use of his ERS battery to score four more points at his team’s home race.

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Albon rose from 16th on the grid to 11th, just outside the points, in Hungary, this time after keeping Valtteri Bottas behind him for 20 laps at a Hungaroring circuit that was not supposed to suit the Williams. Zandvoort was not a good fit for the FW45 either, in theory, yet he somehow managed to stick the car on the second row for his best qualifying result in a Williams. He dropped all the way down to 15th by gambling on slicks on a wet track in the race but managed to rise all the way back up to eighth by the finish for another unexpected haul of points.

Alexander Albon, Williams, Melbourne, 2023 — Melbourne crash was a rare but costly lapse

Monza was always the one weekend of the year that Albon would have had circled on his calendar as a track that could not have been better suited to his car. He was inside the top ten in every session, qualified sixth ahead of both McLarens and Lewis Hamilton and then refused to allow Norris to get an opportunity to get by for 17 straight laps to equal his seventh place finish from Canada and boost Williams’ hopes of taking seventh in the championship in a major way. He could have added another point in Singapore until he was shoved into the wall in a desperate move from Sergio Perez late in the race, denying him the opportunity to fight for the last point to the finish.

More points followed with another strong sprint race performance in Qatar, before he received an unexpected ninth place classification in Austin following two disqualifications after the race for rivals ahead. His final points of the season came in Mexico, though it was hard for Albon not to rue what might have been after his early weekend pace had looked exceptional. But while his car’s unexpected change between final practice and qualifying left him much further down the grid than he had hoped to be, he still managed his tyres well in the race to move into ninth by the finish.

But while Albon’s season had plenty of moments to be proud of, he still showed room for improvement. He appeared to be in contention for a very strong result in Australia before he threw it all away by crashing out in the early laps with an error that was later blamed on a spike in tyre temperatures caused by running wide at the previous corner. He also wrecked his car’s new rear wing in Monaco by crashing in first practice and slid off track in the race when the rain came, then was eliminated from Q1 the next weekend in Spain after sliding off track.

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Alexander Albon

	Best	Worst
GP start	4	18
GP finish	7 (x2)	16
Points	27

However, the biggest problem with Albon’s season was his chronic addiction to exceeding track limits. While so many of the field had their troubles with staying within the lines out on track through the year, perhaps none so like Albon. From losing multiple best qualifying laps – including a painful onr in Mexico – he received time penalties during races at the Red Bull Ring, Losail and the Circuit of the Americas and black-and-white warning flags in some others. As hard as Albon clearly pushes to put his car in a position to succeed, he must do a better job of keeping on track next season.

At the end of the year, Albon had not just succeeded in securing seventh for Williams, he had decimated rookie team mate Logan Sargeant in the process – including a complete shutout in the qualifying battle. But as Sargeant proved to be in need of considerable improvement over his rookie season, it’s an achievement that rings rather hollow.

Albon’s 2023 campaign outshone many who had raced in much faster cars throughout the year. Whether Williams can take another step forward next season remains to be seen, but at least they know they have a driver who will deliver for them if they give him the car to do so.

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Will Wood

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22 comments on “2023 Formula 1 driver rankings #6: Alexander Albon”

frood19 (@frood19)
20th December 2023, 7:36
I am mostly really enjoying these despite the occasional curve ball ranking (e.g. piastri way too high) but I realise they are here to spark debate. However some of write up is just a bit silly at times. Like this:
He took another top ten finish in the Baku sprint race with ninth place, missing out on a second point due to the sprint race points system.
I mean, this is just an empty phrase – it’s true of every position from ninth down. It’s true of every non scoring position in the history of the sport!
Talking of Albion, he’s had a great year and although it’s hard to rate him against sergeant, he’s taken his opportunities very well.
1. Esploratore (@esploratore1)
  20th December 2023, 19:01
  Yes, in the same vein we could say ricciardo missed out on points in the spa sprint because of the points system, I think he had a good sprint and would’ve been in the points in a normal race, and many other cases I didn’t pay attention to.
David
20th December 2023, 8:06
Struggling to agree with this high ranking.
Granted, Albon has found a niche for himself in the Williams team which works well for both parties. The calm pair of hands while a paydriver fills the other seat.
But he’s been up against two weak drivers. And the last time he was up against a good driver he was completely destroyed.
Williams have built a bad car that over-performs on a single lap on low downforce tracks. Albon has managed a couple of eyecatching qualifying performances in those conditions. But does that mean he is in the top third of drivers?
I couldn’t honestly place him above the Tsunoda/Bottas/Hulkenberg area. Not ahead of Russell. Definitely not ahead of Sainz.
1. GechiChan (@gechichan)
  20th December 2023, 8:18
  That’s a bit harsh to put Albon in the same bracket as Tsu/Bot/Hul. No matter if he had a weak teammate or not, Albon had quite a few memorable races where he fought hard for points and made it work (in a dog of a car in race pace). He rarely put a foot wrong, while Tsunoda was too error-prone, Bottas was consistently slow and Hulk was… meh.
  As for Russell and Sainz, they were expected for a lot more given the cars they are in.
  1. Alex
    20th December 2023, 9:18
    He “put a foot wrong” plenty of times – as outlined in the third quarter of this article (starting “however”).
    However… the same goes for almost all the grid, and Albon also spent a very high portion of his laps under pressure, so I’m happy with his position up here.
    Between his defending, his overtakes, his constant desire to push… he’s always pushing himself to deliver, and (despite the frequent, normally small, mistakes) more times than not, he succeeds.
  2. JA
    20th December 2023, 11:46
    So Bottas was just consistently slow, while Albon was in a dog of a car, but thats not what data shows. Williams was a better car than the Alfa Romeo – issue being that Sergeant helps corrupt the data by being the weakeast or second weakeast driver over the course of the season.
    Hulkenberg at the very outdrove his Haas in some qualifying. At what point can we look Albons performances and say that he outdrove his car?
2. Coventry Climax
  20th December 2023, 13:13
  But he’s been up against two weak drivers. And the last time he was up against a good driver he was completely destroyed.
  Interesting. I’ll go see an eye doctor. I was pretty sure I saw 20 cars at the start of every round, but apparently there were just two. His finishing 13 in the drivers championship can’t be correct then either, I’ll get in touch with the FiA to get that sorted.
  So who of Verstappen’s team mates so far have not been completely destroyed? Ricciardo? The one that fled to another team when things went downhill for him, in an attempt to prove just how great a driver he exactly was? We all know how that ended, don’t we? Even if he does get that second seat back at RB, he’ll be no 2. for ever more, which is just another way of saying ‘completely destroyed’, but resigning in the reality.
  1. Esploratore (@esploratore1)
    20th December 2023, 19:06
    Well, the reality is ricciardo was not completely destroyed, merely slightly outperformed, and in 2017 despite being slower than verstappen he also made less mistakes, which ended up with him losing less points vs verstappen than it’d have been otherwise, then ofc ricciardo was luckier in reliability in 2017 and verstappen in 2018.
    1. RH
      20th December 2023, 19:30
      Ricciardo can be proud of beating an undercooked Max thanks to his great luck in 2017. Ricciardo wasn’t the better driver that year or in 2018. 2016 end he was getting outshined by a teenager.
      Also I don’t think the assessment of less mistakes is correct for 2017.
Alesici
20th December 2023, 8:31
I agree with this ranking.
I was transfixed watching those last 25 laps in Canada from the in-car camera right behind Albon but never getting by. The main race TV feed was of no interest to me, as I could observe Albon demonstrating stunningly accurate and consistent precision in his perpetual usage of every millimetre of the track’s width and no more. I’ve never seen this level of driving precision before in decades of watching F1 races. So it’s a bit harsh for you to criticise him for track limit penalties without recognising this aspect of his skillset.
MichaelN
20th December 2023, 9:40
Zandvoort was not a good fit for the FW45 either, in theory, yet he somehow managed to stick the car on the second row for his best qualifying result in a Williams.
This is a key part. In Albon’s case, everything that doesn’t match expectations is credited to him and does not prompt a reconsidering of the assumptions. But in quite a few races, the Williams was actually a decent midfield car. Compare to some other drivers, everything that doesn’t go their way is put on their shoulders.
Albon reminds me of the old Roman emperor Galba quote; had he never been emperor, nobody would have doubted his ability to reign. Albon is probably still suited to a more reliably midfield team. But we already know that in two years of trying, he couldn’t cut it at the front of the field. Ranking him 6th is a big stretch, which becomes somewhat silly when he’s put ahead of multiple race winners.
1. Esploratore (@esploratore1)
  20th December 2023, 19:41
  I’m however not sure he wouldn’t be able to perform if he got another chance at red bull or another top team, I only know he couldn’t adapt to the car back then.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
20th December 2023, 11:48
Happy with this. Albon and the resurgence of Williams was one of the few highlights of 2023.
I’d actually love to see him in a top flight car now. Being thrust into one as he was initially probably wasn’t the right move but he appears to have grown as a F1 driver over the past couple of seasons and might surprise a few people.
Dusty
20th December 2023, 12:18
Don’t we just love hyping up one of the Williams drivers? Every year we have been doing this for a while now. It’s hard to tell which years Williams had an awful car and the hyped up driver was doing heroic driving and when he was just achieving normal results but had a weak team mate.
Just kidding, it’s not hard at all. George was good, Albon is just doing what an ok driver would do in that car.
Coventry Climax
20th December 2023, 12:58
Russell rose from 16th on the grid to 11th, just outside the points, in Hungary, this time after keeping Valtteri Bottas behind him for 20 laps at a Hungaroring circuit that was not supposed to suit the Williams.
Russel?
Stephen Taylor
20th December 2023, 14:30
“However, the biggest problem with Albon’s season was his chronic addiction to exceeding track limits. While so many of the field had their troubles with staying within the lines out on track through the year, perhaps none so like Albon. From losing multiple best qualifying laps – including a painful onr inexico – he received time penalties during races at the Red Bull Ring, Losail and the Circuit of the Americas and black-and-white warning flags in some others. As hard as Albon clearly pushes to put his car in a position to succeed, he must do a better job of keeping on track next season.”
This is a weirdly pedantic assessement of someone who has had a brilliant season overachieving in a diffircult car . Albon is trying to overachieve in a difficult car so of course he will overstep. The onus is not just on Alex to watch track limits but on Williams to give him a better car particularly on race race and one that’s a bit easier to handle. Given how previous article on this site criticised Norris I can’t wait for the review of his season.
Kurt Laguna
20th December 2023, 15:57
I don’t know what Xmas spirits inspired these rankings but that must be some powerful egg nog!!
Fairy (@)
20th December 2023, 18:13
Oh. almost
I was hoping to see Alex Albon in the top 5, Especially after Carlos Sainz (also a top5 driver IMO) showed up.
Neil (@neilosjames)
20th December 2023, 18:18
Albon nicely highlights a real challenge of driver rankings – how to rate a driver with no useful yardstick because their team-mate is poor.
Over-rate them for always being ahead, or under-rate them because they’d be expected to beat [insert name] anyway? Probably impossible to find the right balance.
1. Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
  20th December 2023, 21:51
  Does that apply to Alonso too, and Verstappen? Only a few more sleeps before we find out.
  1. Janith
    21st December 2023, 6:07
    Perez is not performing poorly when you consider how Gasly and Albon performed alongside Verstappen
Adam (@rocketpanda)
20th December 2023, 18:43
I think deserved. Always felt he got dropped into the Red Bull, a front running car too early with too little preparation and almost zero experience of F1 machinery. Given time, this is what he can do. Maybe this is his level, maybe it isn’t – to know for sure we’d have to see him in another front running car again but given what he was able to do with the Williams over the time he’s been there I’d say he’s earned that right, and maybe proven Red Bull may have been too hasty in letting him go.