There’s no question about which of Williams’ two drivers is the strongest. A year-and-a-half into their partnership, the battle between Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant has been more one-sided than any in the field.
But Albon’s drubbing of Sargeant actually makes it more difficult to assess just how good he is relative to his peers throughout the field. As his team principal observed, if one driver is always ahead, it can be difficult to be sure that the full potential of the car is truly being realised.
At the summer break, Albon has far fewer points than he did at this point in the championship last year – only four compared to the 21 he’d accrued after the 14th round last year. But while he hasn’t had as many flashes of giant-killing brilliance that he showed throughout 2022 and 2023, like Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon behind him on this list, Albon has been putting in the work each and every weekend.
Although he hasn’t had as many highs and outstanding results as in previous years, his skill can still be seen in his consistency. Despite driving for the ninth-ranked team in the championship, Albon has only been eliminated from Q1 on two occasions in 2024 – fewer times than the likes of Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly… and even Sergio Perez.
Although he’s only secured a pair of top ten finishes in 2024 so far, it easily could have been more were it not for the remarkably high reliability rate this season. He finished 11th twice in Jeddah and Melbourne, then was running in 11th again in Montreal before he was caught out by Carlos Sainz Jnr spinning in front of him and taking him out of the race.
Alexander Albon
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 9 (x2) | 14 (x4) |
| GP finish | 9 (x2) | 18 (x2) |
| Points | 4 | |
Even his second points finish of the season at his team’s home grand prix at Silverstone came despite battling through front wing damage sustained on the opening lap. His performance in Spa was also very strong, only three-thousandths of a second shy of denying Perez a place in Q3 before finishing within a second of Lance Stroll in what would become 12th.
It’s hard to look at any weekend of the season so far where Albon has done anything less than an acceptable job. The obvious low point was Melbourne, where his practice error left Williams with only one raceable chassis for the rest of the weekend. Although Sargeant did not deserve to be punished for his team mate’s mistake, team…
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