Alex Albon crossed the finish line in P12 at the 2026 F1 Australian GP, beating his teammate Carlos Sainz by three positions, but both missed out on points.
The Williams driver had qualified P15, and had gained two positions before the race start after local driver Oscar Piastri crashed his McLaren and did not reach the grid. Nico Hülkenberg did not start either.
Albon managed to climb some positions in a chaotic start, but struggled with lock ups and pace.
Both Albon and Sainz had a two stop strategy. After starting on Mediums, car number 23 switched to hard tyres on lap 11 during the first of three Virtual Safety Cars, caused by Hadjar’s Red Bull sudden stop. While he took advantage of the third VSC, to recover debris, and squeezed in a final pit stop and grab a set of softs for the remaining 20 laps.
“You need pace to make progress”, regretted Albon after the F1 2026 Australian GP
After the race, Alex Albon spoke about the FW48’s lack of pace in the media pen. Such was the deficit, he ended up 26s behind away from P10.
“You need pace to make progress and we didn’t have it today so honestly that was the race. It felt like we were about half a second to a second off the midfield which is quite tough, but that’s just where we are. Struggled a lot with graining today.
“Just not where we want to be,” summed up the Thai driver, before answering that he believed the pace was worse than what the team had expected in regards to the rest of the midfield.
“I think we were a little bit more optimistic going into the race that the pace would get a bit stronger but in actual fact it was not meant to be.”
Albon felt there were still lessons for Williams during the Australia weekend
The Williams driver reflected on the team’s performance overall during the 2026 F1 Australian GP. Even though Albon felt it was a long race, without much fighting against the midfield, he highlighted: “I feel like, as a race win, that was pretty optimal. I think we did a good strategy.”
After reviewing his lap times, Albon pointed out their main problems were graining, lack of downforce and being overweight.
On his performance, he added: “I didn’t drive too bad. I made a couple of mistakes, but nothing that would have cost me, what is that, 40 seconds.”
