2026 Rules Have Blunted Alex Albon's Key Strengths

Alex Albon has reaffirmed his commitment to Williams until the end of 2027. But behind that good news lies a lingering concern: the 2026 Formula 1 technical regulations are believed to have blunted the Thai driver's main strengths.

This season has indeed been a tough test for Albon. He has often struggled against teammate Carlos Sainz, especially in qualifying. A 12-1 head-to-head defeat with an average gap of nearly three tenths of a second is hardly flattering. While the gap narrows in races and Albon has scored five of Williams' 11 points, there is no denying Sainz has been the more consistent performer this year.

However, judging driver performance in the 2026 cars is not straightforward. Williams itself has grappled with reliability issues and inconsistent performance, while the car is also slower than expected. Add to that the quirky nature of the new power units, which have left even Mercedes puzzled by energy deployment problems that affected George Russell.

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Asked by The Race in Hungary how much of his season's performance has been within his control, Albon admitted it's hard to pinpoint. "Honestly, it's really hard to pinpoint," he said. "There's so much going on. There are multiple factors. Just look at what's happening to George and Kimi, it's not a single car or team issue. If the works team is struggling with it, it definitely happens to customer teams as well."

Albon also highlighted inconsistencies he has felt. "I can count quite consistently on qualifying sessions, even in Spa, where you should be in front and you're not. There are elements to that. There are elements also to ourselves as well. Williams is in the process of understanding, and Carlos has had this issue too. Performance can differ from session to session, weekend to weekend, and sometimes we account for it, sometimes not. It's not been the cleanest of starts to the year for me."

Furthermore, Albon feels the new regulations have moved away from his strengths. "There are elements where I do think these regs are away from my strengths," he asserted. "There is no high speed [corners] anymore. I always consider high speed as one of my strengths, but whenever a corner is high speed, it's now either flat itself, like it was in Pouhon [at Spa], or we're just arriving so slowly now that they're not high speed."

He is still searching for the sweet spot with the sensitive new tyres and cars. "At the moment, I haven't really found the sweet spot with them. Sometimes I can do OK, but generally speaking, it is tricky. It's a different driving style, for sure," Albon concluded.