Alex Albon Deserves More Respect

The 2023 Canadian Grand Prix was indeed a fascinating race and that’s not just because of the fact that besides gathering a century of race wins, Max Verstappen drew level with the great Ayrton Senna as far as his overall tally of wins are concerned (41).

The recently concluded race at Montreal displayed the massive potential that Alex Albon has, and has, truth be told, always had.

While talks and adulations will for a few more days rest with just what an epic battle Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) had and what a fine win it was once again for the great Max Verstappen, the race at Canada will also be remembered for Alex Albon’s herculean effort.

In the end it was a drive that yielded him six points on the whole, but there was a sense of passion and much purpose attached with Alex Albon’s P7.

More importantly, this wasn’t just the best race result for Williams so far up to this point, this was also Alex Albon’s best ever race result ever since marking a much followed and widely anticipated return to the F1 grid, circa 2022 onwards.

When much of the focus rests with the starry names that dominate proceedings at the front of the grid, it often happens that those who demonstrate their prowess in a Formula 1 car in the midfield tend to get forgotten.

But not Alex Albon of Williams. Not his effort at the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix.

A driver who went on an attack mode right at the start, nursing his tyres rather well in the intense high speed corners, the Thai-British driver presided over a closely contested Canadian Grand Prix, where he was found tussling with the likes of both McLaren drivers and the likes of Haas’s Kevin Magnussen.

Although, an early beneficiary of George Russell meeting the wall on lap 12, Alex Albon jumped to P8 (having begun from ninth on the grid), the remainder of the 58 laps saw him contest undeterred with cars either equalling or faster than his Williams’ race pace.

A long stint that saw Alex Albon pick up pace and evade too much graining on the tyre was also central to his seventh place position in the end, which wasn’t too far off really speaking especially given that Ferrari‘s Carlos Sainz finished fifth in the end.

The FW45 is a car that has suddenly come out alive or so it seems thanks to Alex Albon’s exceptional effort at Canada, a race that earned him deservingly the ‘Driver of the day’ performance tag.

Resultantly, the Williams head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson was all praise for the 27-year-old exclaiming, “We have seen in the past that Alex is exceptionally good at managing a race and defending against a group of cars. Today, he was able to overtake on track and then couple all of his past experience with the strengths of the updated FW45 to pull off a very good result.”

Given he’s suddenly found some much needed performance having only bagged a solitary point (courtesy a P10 finish at Bahrain) prior to entering the Canadian Grand Prix, Alex Albon, it could be argued, still has lots of decent results up ahead.

But for them to unfold to his liking, the avid youngster will have to keenly contest cars that may always have better race pace on a Sunday, typically, the likes of McLaren and Alfa Romeo. And it doesn’t look as though that Albon will leave anything to chance; he’s not here to just remain a backmarker.