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ALEXANDER ALBON CAREER PRIMER Reblogs are appreciated and if you want to post it in other website you can as long as you give credit! Enjoy! 🫶🏻 Also thank you to the fantastic @hungriestheidi for beta reading this mwah!

Alexander Albon Ansusinha has always had a passion for motorsport. When he was very little his idols were Valentino Rosso (MotoGP) and Michael Schumacher (Formula 1). But the Ferrari driver was by far the number 1 for him, his entire room was red from his bed to the curtains and the rug. He always cried when Michael lost and his mom had to put a race from a VHS where Michael had won. His first word was ‘rrari.

But his first encounter with a kart, at the age of 4, was not ideal:“The first time [in a kart] I was in tears I hated it. I was in Disneyland I think. I still remember crying about it but I just remember stepping into the car, it was like a mini F1 car” - Beyond the grid 2019

A few years later though, when he was 7 years old, his dad bought him his own go-kart:

“We lived in the country back then. Next to our house there was a field on which my father laid out a figure-eight layout with stones. That's what I messed around with every day after school.” from Top Gear. And then at the age of 8 he was finally allowed to drive on a real track, back then it was just him and his dad, Nigel Albon, who was his driver coach, mechanic, etc, and who also was responsible for getting him into racing.

His first year in karting was difficult, he struggled with performance and lack of experience, and, because of his financial situation, it was almost from race to race and he had to adapt very quickly to progress. But, then, he went to Malasya to do one race for the first time away from the UK and he finished that race 4th which gave him a lot of confidence. And this was a turning point in his karting career. After that year and a half, he started to score podiums. It was becoming serious. In 2006 he went on a higher level and his father had to stop being the one to help him and a professional team took over, even though he remained alongside him through all his karting years.

With strong results and titles in England he moved up to KF3 from 2008 to 2010, where he was noticed by Red Bull Junior Program.

“2009 was a good year,” he recalls. “I remember competing against guys like De Vries, Marciello. Then, in 2010, I got signed by Intrepid and went against drivers like Verstappen and Gasly to become European and World Champion. - The Race Box. In 2010 Red Bull Motorsport took him under its wings through its Thai division, they were keeping a close eye on him and more so when he switched to KF1 before being integrated into the Junior Team for 2012. “What’s important to remember is that I was at a stage in my life when I was able to stand up a little, thanks also to my double-nationality. I realise today how lucky I am to be part-Thai because of the interest that it created. There’s no denying that I would not be racing up to this day if it wasn’t for that too.” - The Race Box, 2nd part.

2012 was, as he described it, the most difficult year of his life. Career wise, he started Formula Renault, with Epic Racing thanks to Red Bull, but the whole year he spent the entire year at the back of the field, even if he had some good qualifyings. And this was in part a reflection of his private life problems. “But then at some point it turned and I think, I had some family issues a few years on when I was about 14/15, we like to call it my mom went on a holiday, that changed me. [...] the financial support was gone completely,” - High Performance. In the podcast he also says that this changed the way he approached racing. In karting he was not the most competitive kid and because he had the financial support, racing for him had no real pressure, he didn’t feel like it was a need. But after what happened he did feel the need to perform, he described it as a ‘survival feeling’. Because of all of this his first year in Formula Renault didn’t go smoothly and as a consequence of this he was dropped from the Red Bull Junior team at the end of the year, and he felt like the dream was becoming over.

All this also had consequences on his confidence, “I think I lost a lot of genuine confidence when I had this issue. I went from karting to cars, I struggled with cars, didn’t have the feeling, didn’t have the knowledge of single seaters to begin with. I struggled with genuine life confidence, went from having a lot of friends to no friends, started to be a lot more introverted, so everything started to fall away a little bit, becoming a little bit more fragmented in just how I was as a person.” - High Performance.

In 2013, though, he was picked up by the Gravity Junior Program linked to the Lotus F1 Team, which only lasted for one season. Alex considers it as his first proper year in single seater. It didn’t go well, but he did show signs of potential, a big jump from 2012. “After a tough 2012 Lotus helped get the sponsors to race,” revealed Albon. “I most probably wouldn’t be driving if it wasn’t for them, so I am very thankful for what they have done!“Apart from helping find sponsors, I frequently visit the factory in Enstone where we have our physical assessments as well as individual programs made. We also have a sporting manager at each test/race who is there to speak to the team and drivers, giving advice to both” - The Checkered Flag.

Even though he stayed with them for one year, this allowed him to join the KTR formation in 2014 and he finished in 3rd place in the championship. It was also at the end of 2013, just before 2014 started, when he started to regain the confidence he had lost the previous years, “I just remember there was a winter test, it was in December after quite an average season and suddenly I was now quickest in this test, it was in Portugal, and I was like well okay and and and honestly from that point on just I was quick” - High Performance.

In 2015 he signed with the Signature team making his way to the European Formula 3 Championship, all thanks to his links to Lotus in Formula Renault. He finished 7th overall that season and then moved to GP3.

He also competed on Macau for Signature this year

In 2016 he signed for ART to compete in GP3 (alongside an familiar face, Charles Leclerc). He exceeded all of ART’s expectations by integrating himself instantly into the company and fighting for pole positions and victories from the first race weekend (words from team principal Sebastien Philippe for motorsport.com). “He didn’t need a period of adaptation to become one of the best drivers in the category and he didn’t stop progressing throughout the year. He missed the title by very little and it was through no fault of his own, either sporting or personal, why he didn’t clinch it”.

After finishing 2nd, he continued with the team but now in Formula 2 in 2017. He ended up in 10th place for the championship with only two podiums.

“After the bad results of 2017, I knew there was something wrong. I wasn’t sure of what but I could feel it,” he says. “I stayed with my opinion and didn’t let the team tell me I was in the wrong when they were in the right.” - The Race Box, 2nd part.

One of the problems he faced this season was due to an injury, he broke a collarbone whilst out on a mountain biking training ride and missed the Baku round.

Also this is because I am a chalex enthusiast: in Abu Dhabi he was winning for the entire race before being overtaken with a controversial move in the last lap by Charles. [To learn more about chalex click here and here by @vegasgrandprix]

In 2018 Alex found himself again in a tricky situation: “There was 95% chance I would not race in 2018 until an arrangement was found with DAMS and it really paid off,” he remembers. “I went to the tests, kept pushing and was the fastest on track in one of the two days. Still, I was unsure just a few days before the first race of the championship. And it was like that for the first three weekends and even until June. It was a race-by-race situation.” - The Race Box, 2nd part. Not being considered as a priority choice made him angry to prove himself to the team and he came as one of the strongest contenders for the championship despite the season being made of ups and downs.

This Formula 2 season in particular encountered problems, not only for Alex, with the introduction of the new Formula 2 car, due to a not great clutch system. This made Alex lose lots of positions in the early stages of the races.

But he could prove his value, he had 8 podiums and 4 wins, finishing 3rd in the championship behind Lando Norris (2nd) and George Russell (1st).

“It’s true that, for most of the season, it has been about Lando [Norris, ed.] fighting against George [Russell, ed.] but I was always behind or in between them for much of the year. Obviously, I think that it’s just the way the British media portrayed their battle. Don’t get me wrong, the two are very-talented drivers but it was nice for me to be up there too.” - The Race Box, 2nd part.

In the middle of the 2018 Formula 2 season, Alex started to look for options to become a professional. His dream still was to become an F1 driver but offers were not appearing and after calling up Helmut Marko (who had kicked him off from the Red Bull Junior program in 2012) and being told that all seats are full, he signed with Formula E team Nissan alongside Sébastien Buemi.

“The level of competition in the series is intense, and I’m looking forward to testing myself against some of the best drivers in the world,” - Motorsport.com.

He tested the new, at the time, Gen2 car in Calafat during the off season but he didn't make an appearance during the official pre-season test in Valencia. This is all because in the final race of the 2018 F2 season he received an offer from Helmut Marko to drive for Toro Rosso in 2019.

“It came to the last race of the year and Helmut Marco got me back again. So the one who told me ‘there's no space’ inquired about my simulator Services, that's what he said, he got his PA to come over and speak to me and say do you mind just popping into Helmut's office at the circuit and we had a chat about simulator work, I was actually at the simulator for Mercedes doing work for them, he wanted to know how much I got paid. He agreed to my terms on my simulator contract and then, I don't know what it is, I think it's just something he does occasionally, he was speaking about this contract and as I was kind of walking out the door he was like ‘by the way, what's your position with your formula e contract, can you get out?’ and the one thing I did make sure in my Formula E contract was to have a clause in it that if I had a Formula 1 offer I was good to go and, I said well you know that's the way it is and he said ‘okay, let me get back to you’ and then within 24 hours it was almost pretty much all done.” - High Performance.

It wasn’t till this moment that he believed that he could fulfil his dream of becoming an F1 driver: “It was not that clear to me formula one was this obvious pathway that I could achieve. I don't think I'm a normal driver in that sense where Formula 1 was this thing and that's all I thought about that's all I wanted to be, of course I wanted to be a Formula 1 driver but for me to believe it, after everything that I went through, I had to almost prove it to myself, I needed to see it. And I would say, only until I got to Formula 2, until I got the call that I was going to be in Formula 1 did I actually realise you know, I'm in it” - High Performance.

He went to his first year in F1 with 0 days in an F1 car. His first day was in Barcelona pre testing where you do a day and a half with your teammate and then go into the first race. He describes it as the most stressful time.

And the first time in the test was not a good one: he spun on the first lap. It was due to no fault of his own, the car had a steering issue. He says that when he went back to the pit lane and a hundred photographers were waiting for him, it finally hit him that he was in Formula 1.

As the season went on, he started to get comfortable at Toro Rosso and started to have good races. He scored his first points in his second race in Bahrain. But then, after summer break, a change came through, “I was kind of living in this dream where the pressure every race was becoming less and less. I knew after the first race that I belonged, I knew, you know, I've got what it takes and and I do generally believe in myself, and then summer break comes around, had a great start of the Season, great rookie year so far, enjoying my racing more than I ever thought I could, and then I get the same guy, Helmut Marko, call me back to his office this time in Austria, so that's a bit more serious” - High Performance. He remarked that the conversation went the same way as the previous one, with Helmut dropping the news at the end of the meeting, “This is the number to speak to, this is going to be your engineer, maybe give him a call and figure it out. You can't go to the factory right away, because it's shut down but you are going to be announced in about two hours” - High Performance.

After being with Toro Rosso for 12 races he was promoted to the Red Bull Racing team, replacing Pierre Gasly. The team said they would “use the next nine races to evaluate Alex’s performance” and “make a decision as to who will drive alongside Max in 2020.” (BBC)

He of course wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass but he was not sure if he was ready or not for this, and how it was going to be being Max’s teammate.

“[...] two weeks now or nothing, just thinking about this opportunity but I can't drive I can't get into my happy place, I can't get my helmet on, I've got to just prolong this anxiety out, but, of course, I went into it with more confidence than I did the first time. But it's these opportunities, you just have to take them because Formula 1, the way it is, it's so cutthroat but at the same time I thought to myself there are so many drivers who would kill for this opportunity, there's so many drivers who wish they could have a spot at a top team and within six months you have got that already, you're not going to reject it and with all, even with the ‘am I good enough’, of course there's this deep inner belief that ‘yes, I am’ and you got to go for it. So I am a little bit self conflicting in myself but deep down yes, of course, let's give it a go” - High Performance.

He ended his debut season 8th in the WDC with 92 points, 76 being scored during the last 9 races at Red Bull compared with 97 for Verstappen in that same period, which solidified his place on the big team for 2020. He also won the Rookie of the Year award at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony.

The following year, though, the car changed quite a lot and it became much more tricky to drive for Alex. He says that it was specially the lack of experience what made it so difficult for him to overcome the problems and he didn’t really know what direction the car needed to go. And for his teammate it wasn't a big issue. Alex started to overanalyze and was overcritical in his performance and he spent so much energy in trying to find a solution to the problems he had and he says that he should have “taken a step back a bit and trusted myself a bit more”- High Performance. And from there it all started to snowball and every time the car became sharper and sharper and he started to become more tense.

On top of it all, one of the things he struggled the most was the media side of being on a top team. Not only because he was on a top team, but also because of all the noise around the swapping seats. Every mistake he made got criticised. Plus all that it is social media with the memes and he became almost a joke, and as much as he could ignore it, on Thursday, media day, he had to go answering questions about his performance and who could replace him.

Back then he didn’t have any structure, didn’t have a team behind him. “I think Red Bull, especially, they have one extremely quick driver but they're not that used to having young drivers in their team. So, you know, there was help and there was advice when needed but it's not that obvious actually. And so I was with my trainer, we kind of looked at sports psychologists just to see if I need to get that confidence back and that that inner belief back, but I think people don't realise that Formula 1 as much as it is a team sport, it's still very individual, you have the team and the team do care about you, and they do want the best for you, but it's a strange sport where you have your little circle, it's a team within a team, and you have your little support network which for me is my family and at the time my trainer and that was it. But I realised in time that that wasn't big enough and actually, you know, I didn't have a manager at the time or, you know, even anyone to kind of handle the social side of things so I went quiet on everything.” - High Performance.

His results this season were not ideal, even if he had two podiums (being the first asian f1 driver to do so). Alex finished the season 7th in the WDC with 105 points to Verstappen’s 214. And as a consequence he was replaced by Sergio Perez the following year leaving him without a seat for 2021 and as a reserve driver for Red Bull.

The news of being replaced were delivered to him by team principal Christian Horner when he went to his office in the factory. He knew it was coming because of all the noise from the media. “I do genuinely believe that Christian and Helmut, they really wanted it to work, the reason why I was told so late was because they gave me to the last race to try and show my worth, so, for that, you know, I genuinely do believe they wanted the best for me, but it just didn't work out and, you know, obviously ‘Sergio is going to take your place and we'll keep you as a simulator driver if you accept, we'll try to find you a place for the year after’ and so that was it” - High Performance.

As much as the 2020 season was painful, he didn’t find the relief he thought he would because all he wanted was to get back again.

On the year away, he had two clear objectives to work on. On one side, he worked on being less of a yes man like he was at Red Bull and prioritising himself. And on the other just performance wise, where were his weaknesses.

The first two months he used them to find the structure he needed, “I need to actually live and figure out where my money is going, what am I doing kind of thing and get the network going, so I had a true team. And I chose people that were, maybe not the most experienced in their role but would fight for me to the death and these are the same people that I have with me to this day, you know. people who wanted an opportunity but cared for me. So I took a guy from Red Bull, who always fought my corner, no matter how tough the situation was, he became my manager and then my trainer who's obviously been with me from the very beginning, so I created my network.” - High Performance.

But working on his driving was a very tough task because he couldn’t actually drive the car, so he did a lot of work at the simulator which made him understand a lot of things better. He wanted to do what it takes to get himself to be the best driver he can be and consequently put him in the best position.

On a professional level, he wanted to do the best job for the team to show that he was a valuable asset, not just for Red Bull but for every other team. So he wanted to make the car as quick as possible.

Even though he was on the sidelines he was helping Checo get comfortable with the car and he was driver coaching Yuki Tsunoda who was one of the junior drivers at Alpha Tauri. “It was this weird thing because, for example with Yuki, I wanted to take his seat, he was a potential candidate that I could replace. But then I remember having that chat with Helmut Marko, he told me at the time ‘you need to driver coach this guy’ and I was like ‘I'm not going to, that's a potential seat’ and he said ‘no, no he's already signed like he's guaranteed’ so I was like okay fine.” - High Performance. And clearly, his work paid off because Red Bull Racing won the 2021 driver world championship, albeit controversial. “I was listening to Max and Checo, I was there at the time, and obviously Checo was new, but Max drove the car last year and he was talking about how much better the rear felt, how much more stable it was and you're just like ah, you know it does hurt a little bit, but at the same point you're like okay that's great you know, i've i feel like i've contributed to that.” - Beyond the Grid 2022.

At the same time, Alex participated in 14 of 16 races of the 2021 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters alongside Formula 2 Driver Liam Lawson for the Italian outfit AF Corse with the backing from Red Bull.

He won his maiden DTM race at the Nürburgring, becoming the first Thai driver to do so.. “Today, that was a really good day for my team and for myself,” Albon said after becoming the first DTM race winner from Thailand. “The team has been working hard overnight and that paid off. Today, we have made a step forward, we want to carry over this momentum.” - dtm.com.

For 2022 he regained a seat for Williams Racing. For this to happen one of his best friends, George Russell [to learn more about galex click here by @onadarklingplain] helped put a good word for him in the team, since he was a driver for them and was moving to Mercedes, and a spreadsheet he made comparing his results relative to Max and of the other two teammates the man had.

“Alex is one of the most exciting young talents in motorsport, yet comes with a large amount of F1 experience from his time at Red Bull. His multiple podium finishes highlight his speed as a driver, and we know he will immediately feel at home with the team at Grove.” - Jost Capito, CEO of Williams Racing via williams.com.

Alex now feels much more comfortable since joining Williams and has learned a lot about different things, “I've got a very good team around me, you know, it's a core team now. It's maybe four of us at this point but they protect my best interest to heart. Like right now, for example, it's very hard for the team to get access to free time of mine or you know they want to come and see me in Monaco and film a piece with me or whatever, they're laughing behind the scenes. But it's true that I've got a good group around.

And the other thing is purely the wealth of knowledge that you get. It sounds silly to say because I've only been in Formula 1 for four years now, but I know what the car needs in terms of an engineer I think. I don't want to sound silly saying this, or arrogant saying this but I do think I could engineer a car to a decent level by myself, if I needed to, I wouldn't get everything right definitely, check how much fuel is in the car, but in terms of like General scientific point of view I understand it. And the final thing which is the biggest thing is I'm just not tense, I'm at one with the car, I know what the car's going to do before I go into the corner.” - High Performance.

#alex albon #formula 1 #f1 #m*#my god its been a long time since i did a research of something #i made sure that the links to the podcast are on the minute when he says the things 😭#anyway sorry if there is any mistakes english is not my mother language and all that

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