Autosport Top 50 of 2024: #39 Alex Albon

“Messy” is how Alex Albon sums up his third season with Williams.

Problems came from both sides; his crashes in Melbourne and Brazil were awkward since they led to missed races (in Australia for Logan Sargeant), but Williams’s car-build issues also meant he was competing with a long-hidden weight penalty and reliability kept undoing him too.

Albon was excellent in qualifying, reaching Q3 more than in 2023 (eight vs seven) and with 0.3s on average in hand over both team-mates. Albon also shone when Williams was on form. Seventh in Baku was the highlight, along with Monaco and an unrewarded Canada display.

The best F1 overtake of the year?

The Formula 1 history books have Alex Albon’s 2024 Canadian Grand Prix ending with a retirement – the Williams driver completely blameless in being taken out in Carlos Sainz’s spin ahead. But ‘DNF’ would be better off standing for the delightful, naughty, finely-judged double-pass he’d produced earlier on Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon.

While they were lapping on wearing intermediates mid-way through this wet-dry thriller, Albon got a run on then-RB driver Ricciardo heading down Montreal’s back straight. He raced up behind and alongside it towards the end of the long acceleration zone, with Ocon’s Alpine head also providing a tow.

When Ricciardo braked as he textbook defended the inside and with Ocon remaining on the racing line, Albon braked later than both, releasing the pedal to swing right and get alongside Ocon having threaded his FW46 in front of Ricciardo.

He then edged onto the inside kerb of the track’s final chicane sequence – with Ocon’s compliance and more heavily worn inters here needing acknowledgement – and finally powered away to seal the move.

It was so well judged, with Ricciardo later joking on Instagram, “pull a stunt like that again and we’re done”.